Building Global Bridges 2013: Great Expectations

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Great Expectations

We have been busy this week preparing for two presentations, the culmination of the Building Global Bridges program. Tomorrow morning, we will present our accomplishments at our partner university, UKZN. We hope to impress upon our guests the importance of service learning global exchange programs - both in terms of student development and achievement, as well as university notoriety. I would love to see this program become an annual event, with VCU and UKZN alternating the visitor and host roles! The second presentation takes place tomorrow evening at Brettonwood High School. The learners will present to their teachers, parents and community members a summary of their participation in the PhotoVoice project. With our support, the learners will conduct the entire exhibition themselves. This may be the first time that some of them have an opportunity to speak to a large audience and showcase their work. I am so proud of their achievements and really looking forward to seeing their performance. They have exceeding expectations from day one, and I know they will not disappoint!

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Purpose of BGB

The “Building Global Bridges through Community Engaged Research in Durban South Africa” (hereinafter referred to as the “Global Bridges” project) was created in partnership between the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond VA (US) and the University of Kwazulu Natal (Durban, SA). The Global Bridges project utilizes a multi-dimensional approach to international community engagement that simultaneously incorporates study and research abroad experiences. Through a composite of research training and cultural learning activities, students participate in building global cross-peer relationships; designing, implementing and evaluating research methods (photovoice and semi structured interviews) used to assess and address health needs and quality of life in a poor and historically marginalized community (Kenneth Gardens). Through this experience students from UKZN and VCU are prepared to function as culturally-competent professionals in an increasingly globalized environment as public and community health global ambassadors. A core component of the “Global Bridges” project is its cross-peer training in which university students mentor and help guide local high school students in photovoice—a research methodology that allows the high school students (called learners) to examine and explore their community as novice researchers. The main research methods used in the project are:

A. Photo voice with 15 Brettonwood school students

B. Semi-structured interviews and health needs assessment

a. Users of local community health clinic at Kenneth Gardens

b. Key community informants

C. Video capturing cross-cultural collaborative learning between VCU-UKZN students and project process