Putting Process into Action for Good by Ian Corbett and Stuart Hendry

The School of Management Studies in the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cape Town runs four post-graduate diploma courses involving approximately 150 students. This semester we are piloting a new course called “Experiencing Entrepreneurship” with 8 students. The course is designed to inspire young people by equipping and enabling them to meaningfully experience entrepreneurship in action .

Our partnership with the South Africa Sustainable Development Initiative Foundation (SASDI website www.sasdi.co.za ) provides an ideal opportunity to combine more traditional university-based knowledge acquisition with experiential learning through hands-on involvement in entrepreneurial action learning projects within Mfuleni, near Cape Town . The aim is to develop team and leadership capabilities whilst gaining direct experience in the application of best practice processes supporting innovative thinking, creative problem solving and knowledge management.

Early Childhood Development (ECD) is a strategic priority for the City of Cape Town, who recently entered into a partnership with SASDI to build a new pre-school facility in Mfuleni. One of our student teams will help Cordelia George to launch her construction company during the build programme. The second team will work with Mama Amelia who runs the Sakhumzi Centre, which is home to about 150 children from 0 to 18 years of age. The aim of this project will be to assist Mama Amelia to develop and finalise a conceptual design for a new, enhanced Sakhumzi facility that will incorporate best practices from around South Africa with Mama Amelia's “dream” based on 40 years of hard-earned experience in saving and uplifting the lives of children. The team is currently completing their problem definition statement after an intensive 3 week fact finding period. Key knowledge areas they need to learn about have been identified, and they are hard at work designing a learning network to source ideas and best practices underpinning successful projects as well as insights into previous mistakes and lessons learned. The goal is to explore the possibility of establishing Sakhumzi as an ECD centre of excellence with facilities and knowledge supporting a network of Educares within Mfuleni as well as the broader Mfuleni community .

As Steve Biko once said “We believe that in the long run the special contribution to the world by Africa will be in this field of human relationship. The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face.” Through the introduction of this new course in partnership with Min Basadur we also hope to teach upcoming generations the importance of “process” as an enabler of learning and innovation that can genuinely make a difference to the lives of others through more effective teamwork .

To contact Ian email him at ian.corbett@knoco.co.za or to contact Stuart email stuart@sasdi.co.za