GCRO researchers attend the 2024 Witwatersrand-Edinburgh Sustainable African Futures (WESAF) Sustainability School
GCRO researchers Mr. Thembani Mkhize and Ms. Yashena Naidoo attended the Witwatersrand-Edinburgh Sustainable African Futures (WESAF) Doctoral Programme’s Sustainability School from April 28th to May 10th, 2024. The program, a collaboration between the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Edinburgh (UoE), aims to provide research training for academics to complete interdisciplinary doctoral research on sustainability in Africa. The program includes a primarily online Master's degree followed by a primarily online Doctorate, with in-person elements such as Sustainability Schools in South Africa and contact sessions in Edinburgh. After completing the Master of Science by Research in Sustainable African Futures (MScR SAF), at least 30 Fellows will continue to complete PhDs either full-time or part-time. Thembani Mkhize and Yashena Naidoo are among the 48 recruited Fellows who attended the recent in-person Sustainability School as part of the requirements for the MScR SAF degree.
During their time at the Sustainability School, Mkhize and Naidoo had valuable opportunities to meet and network with other Fellows and academics from Wits and the UoE. This allowed them to gain insights into different academic disciplines and share knowledge about their roles within the GCRO. The sessions at the Sustainability School focused on the master dissertation module of the MScR SAF (the PhD proposal), providing the Fellows with guidance on improving their dissertations/proposals. They also had sessions on applying sustainability, interdisciplinarity, and social justice to their research projects. Additionally, there were sessions on networking skills, delivering high-level pitches, career plans, institutional impacts, research dissemination, securing funds for research projects, innovation and knowledge economies in Africa, and teambuilding. These sessions were particularly helpful when Mkhize and Naidoo pitched their proposal/dissertation ideas to other Fellows and academics from Wits and the UoE at a networking session organized by WESAF. The feedback they received was positive, inspiring, and helped them identify the shortcomings of their research and suggested ways to improve it.
The WESAF Sustainability School program included various excursions for WESAF Fellows to cultural and heritage sites in and around Johannesburg. These sites included the Lesedi Cultural Village, the Apartheid Museum, the Wits Origins Centre, the Maropeng Cradle of Humankind Heritage Site, Gold Reef City, the Wits Art Museum, and Soweto (particularly Vilakazi and Khumalo Streets in Orlando West). These visits were both recreational and educational, providing insight into the history, culture, identity, politics, and overall morphology of Johannesburg, Gauteng, and South Africa. For example, the guided tour at Maropeng provided information on earlier life forms, cave formation, geology, hominids, and human fossils in Southern Africa. The visit to the Apartheid Museum showcased the impact and implications of apartheid on South Africa's history, particularly relevant to Mkhize's research and work at the GCRO. The tour of the Lesedi Cultural Village offered a glimpse into South Africa's indigenous cultural groups and their traditional way of life, which was particularly interesting for Fellows from outside South Africa.
The WESAF Sustainability School was an excellent networking, educational and recreational program that offered valuable life lessons around history and heritage, culture, research, professionalism and professional impact, among other things. Mkhize and Naidoo are proud to have been part and parcel of the Sustainability School, and will be incorporating some of their experiences and lessons learnt in(to) their respective future academic and professional endeavours.
