The Community-based Project Module is a compulsory module for all undergraduate students in the Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Information Technology at the University of Pretoria. It requires students to work for 40 hours in the community and then reflect on their experiences.
Community-based learning is a form of experiential learning through which students carry out tasks that meet genuine human needs. The execution of these tasks serves as an educational tool enabling the students to acquire a number of important life skills.
This year, six students from USRN member universities, such as Sichuan University and PolyU, enrolled in the Community-based Project Module at the University of Pretoria. The students formed groups with local students to support various community projects: upgrading the computer centre at a secondary school in Soshanguve, repainting the cages at an animal rescue centre in Bronkhorstspruit, renovating the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Centurion and designing and building traps for the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa.
“Renovating the SPCA animal shelter made it more visually appealing and attractive, encouraging people to place more trust in its activities. This will increase the number of visitors to the centre, and eventually more animals will be adopted.”
Caesar Cheung, a second-year Civil Engineering student at PolyU, shared his experience of renovating an SPCA animal shelter in Centurion.