Generating new knowledge with and in a community setting

Abstract

In the last decade there has been a surge of urban development throughout the world. Urban areas continue to be planned through the formal approach; however informal settlements in South African cities are growing. These settlements play an important political role in determining the type of urban space cities become. Local governments are pressurised into providing more resources in order to prevent urban insecurity, violence and environmental deterioration. Human beings have needs that are complex and interconnected. Urban prosperity lies in the linking of all city-dwellers in their interdependence. During 2013 the Department of Town and Regional Planning (TRP) at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) took part in the Flamingo Crescent Informal Settlement Community Engagement Project. The first phase of this project was to assist the community with mapping and enumeration plans and schedules. The second phase was to prepare a conceptual layout of the community to facilitate re-blocking of structures. A strategic way of implementing academicbased community engagement is through the pedagogy of service-learning. Service-learning exposes students and academics to key development challenges facing the study area while the community gains knowledge and confidence to negotiate for better conditions. Through the act of community-led enumeration and mapping students and academics are introduced to community members, other professionals and service providers. This collaboration improves strategies, practice and knowledge in informal settlements and creates a foundation for an overall development framework that can respond to the broad development challenges facing the particular community. In response to the 1991 Education White Paper on the transformation of higher education the concept of community engagement as one of the main tasks of a university, along with teaching-and-learning and research has been widely embraced. The understanding of how universities should go about engaging with communities is being widely debated by academics. It is strongly believed that the Flamingo Crescent Informal Settlement Community Engagement Project has contributed to knowledge regarding academic-based community engagement and builds on the progress being made by CPUT in becoming an ‘engaged’ institution. The Flamingo Crescent Informal Settlement Community Engagement Project has been recognised as an official World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 project - WDC#236.