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An earlier newsletter outlined SAIDE's possible collaboration
with UNISA's College of Agriculture and Environmental Science and
other stakeholders (from government departments and NGOs) in the
development of an exciting new programme on food security. The programme
seeks to develop the capacity, skills, and values in the context
of food security within rural communities to meet long-term goals
of sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Alice Barlow
Zambodla and Christine Randell report on a recent materials development
workshop.
About the Programme
It is planned that this short learning programmewill be piloted
by Unisa during 2009 and is set at NQF level 5. It consists of six
12-credit modules (a total of 72 credits). The course runs over
one year and uses a mixed-delivery method that includes a combination
of contact sessions facilitated by tutors together with self-study
and practical application within the community where they are based.
The programme is partially support through a grant from the WK Kellogg
Foundation to SAIDE.
The programme aims to equip individuals who wish to become household
food security facilitators with the skills that they can use to
help empower their communities through improved food security status,
health and nutrition and thus contribute to integrated rural development.
Students completing this programme will be provided with knowledge,
values and skills that will enable them to:
- Link relevant food security issues, concepts, food-related policies,
strategies and programmes with a household focus for improving
food sovereignty and food security.
- Utilize a range of facilitation and participatory skills to
identify and mobilize households for improved household food security.
- Assess communities for vulnerability to food insecurity and
planning of food and nutrition interventions.
- Observe and analyse natural resource management systems with
community members and make suggestions for appropriate interventions.
- Identify ways and means of optimizing food production and the
use of various relevant value-adding technologies and processes
so as to encourage the development of ideas for purposes of income
generation using surplus food and other available resources.
During the course students will learn how to conceptualize, initiate,
implement, manage, and monitor household food and nutrition security
projects together with community members and structures, local government,
and the private sector.
Materials Development Phase
The project has reached the materials development phase
and at a recent materials development workshop the first steps were
taken to start the materials design process. In order to design
teaching and learning materials that are of good quality as well
as ‘fit for purpose’ it was necessary to work out a
competency profile of a household food security facilitator. It
was agreed that such an individual would need to reflect on skills,
knowledge, values and attitudes in relation to the following main
competences:
- Research
- Facilitation
- Project management
- Subject specifics.
A materials development team consisting of players from a wide
range of backgrounds such as NGOs, local tertiary institutions,
independent consultants and parastatals has been constituted.
A competency profile was drawn up by Christine Randell to help guide
the process of materials development. These competences are reflected
in the attached
table.
Next Steps
The materials are being developed as open education resources under
a Creative Commons license. An online arena will be used for collaboration
around materials development and to test the newly-developed Open
Education Resources - OER Africa platform (story on OER Africa will
be included in a forthcoming issue.) Progress on this project will
be reported on in future issues.
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