Thirteen Master students of the Bochum Program of Development Management at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa recently started to work together with the Iliso Care Society (ICS), a non-profit organization supporting various community development activities in the township of Khayelitsha near Cape Town. As part of a course module on "Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation," the students from Botswana, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Portugal, Zambia and Zimbabwe conducted practical planning exercises to support two on-going programs of the Iliso Care Society, namely the Iliso Youth Choir and the Iliso Feeding Scheme. Beyond the one-off planning exercise, the majority of the Master students have pledged their longer-term commitment to support the Iliso volunteers by sharing their experience and academic knowledge.
On Friday, 8 February 2013, the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) of Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) and the School of Government (SoG) and Institute for Social Development (ISD) of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) celebrated "10 Years of Cooperation" at the UWC in Cape Town/South Africa.
After the Opening Address of Prof. Brian O' Connell, Vice Chancellor of UWC, MC Dr. Gabriele Baecker invited Mr. Roland Herrmann, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Ralf Herrmann, DAAD representative in Johannesburg/South Africa, Prof. Wilhelm Löwenstein, Vice Rector of RUB, a current (Coretta Jonah) and a former scholarship holder (Callistus Agbaam) of the SAGER CDRCJ and Prof. Julian May, Director of the ISD, to give a speech on the very successful cooperation of these institutions. The Programme was accompanied by a marvellous choir from Khayelitsha/Cape Town. The ceremony was followed by a reception, at which the members of the steering committee (Prof. W. Löwenstein, Prof. J. May, Prof. Ch. Tapscott, Dr. G. Baecker) together with the coordinators of the Centre (Ina Conradie and Britta Niklas) welcomed about 120 guests.
Please see also the article on the website of the University of the Western Cape: Celebrating 10 years of collaboration between UWC and Ruhr University Bochum.