Besides being part of a range of NRF-funded national research projects and organising Teaching and Learning with Technology events, Dr Daniela Gachago, a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Innovative Educational Technology, recently completed her doctoral degree.

Gachago also played a cardinal role in the organisation of the first ever South African Digital Storytelling Festival.

The festival, one of the outcomes of an EU-funded project, was held in Cape Town earlier this year and saw 20 international digital storytellers sharing their practices.

“My field of research is focused on the use of emerging technologies to transform teaching and learning. Over the last few years we have piloted and written about a range of emerging technologies such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Clickers or Podcasting to support student learning and engagement,” she says.

She adds that since her work exposed her to the injustices and inequalities that students deal with on a daily basis, she has become more and more interested in what the literature terms socially just pedagogies.

“Socially just pedagogies have grown out of a critical or radical pedagogies movement, which encouraged a critique of political, social, economic, and sociocultural issues in education, whilst foregrounding the importance of transgressive transformation of the educational project.”

Her centre’s digital storytelling projects, for example, create a space for students to engage across difference and explore what Deborah Britzmann calls difficult knowledges, such as power and privilege in South African classrooms, in order to challenge existing power dynamics in the classroom.

“In particular, in the context of an increasingly vocal and empowered student body, education needs to be about more than content acquisition, but in Martin Luther King’s word, need to encourage students to think intensively and think critically.”

Gachago believes in people following their dreams even if that means taking risks.

“I have left my home and have lived and worked in many different countries before making South Africa my home, getting out of my comfort zone was the most important thing I have done and keep on doing.”

She encourages women to challenge themselves and never be too comfortable.

“Surround yourself with other women you trust and enjoy working together, I have found working in teams has allowed me to push boundaries I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own.

She also challenges them to look beyond their academic institutions, and instead develop regional, national and international networks as they are living in the global world.

“Be yourself. That’s good enough,” Gachago tells women.

Written by Marick Hornsveld

Empowering young women is at the heart of an exciting initiative recently launched at CPUT.

Attendees at the inspiring EmpowHerSA-CPUT launch event, presented by the Centre for Diversity, Inclusivity and Social Change and the Division of Student Affairs, were invited to join the programme as mentors or mentees with the aim of empowering undergraduate students to reach their full potential.

Prof Driekie Hay-Swemmer, Executive Director in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor, said she was excited about the event and told the students that they could not have been at a better place than at the event, surrounded by inspiring women being part of the EmpowHer project.

She said it was sad that the playing fields were still not equal and added: “We will get there”. “What I see across the country and at CPUT is that women are taking up their legitimate space in various platforms.”

The Faculty of Applied Sciences’ Prof Beatrice Opeolu said the EmpowHer idea was conceptualised last year during her sabbatical at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

She said women globally have limitations to their career progression for many reasons, including the roles that traditions and cultures have placed on them, and this impacts on their productivity.

“We know there are opportunities mostly for postgraduate students but not for undergraduate students and that is the gap. I thought if I had opportunities as an undergraduate student that I had much later, maybe my career trajectory may be different from what it is and maybe it would be more productive.”

With two colleagues in Nigeria, Emi Alawode and Prof Ganiyat Olatunde, along with Nonkosi Tyolwana, Director of Institutional Transformation, Social Cohesion CPUT, the idea was conceptualised.

“We were able to deliver on two workshops that will empower two cohorts of students at the Federal University of Agriculture and the Olabisi Onabanjo University. For me what was interesting about those two cohorts, when we started most of them didn’t know that they could actually put a CV together.”

She said many of participants in the Nigerian cohorts now had profiles on LinkedIn and the two cohorts were vibrant and growing.

“They have been able to tap into some opportunities since we started the programme.”

Tyolwana encouraged attendees to be part of the first cohort of EmpowHer-CPUT and said there would be an induction of the mentees and mentors.

Other speakers included Central SRC secretary-general, Nonele Ganyile and Wendy Kondlo, chairperson of the District Six Local SRC while attendees were awarded the opportunity to ask questions and share experiences.

Several inspiring young women who have excelled in several areas, including sport and academics were recognised during the event.

They will be profiled during an upcoming campaign.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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CPUT and a range of partners celebrated International Women’s Day with the inauguration of the Think-Tank on Gender Equality and Women Empowerment (GEWE).

The event, held at the Cape Town Hotel School, was live-streamed to an online audience and received national news coverage.

The theme was: Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Chris Nhlapo opened the event and said the pandemic and its accompanying negative regressive effects must not stop us from continuing to grapple with the issues of gender inclusivity.

“As a university of technology, it is critical that we accelerate women's careers in technology and reinforce authentic leadership in these spaces. Role model visibility in science and technology is critical to attracting more women to this field.”

Honourable Thandi Modise, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans and CPUT Chancellor was the guest speaker.

Modise said that while significant strides had been made to empower women and to promote gender equality, women still bear “a disproportionate burden of the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment”.  

“Our collective efforts to promote women empowerment and gender equality must be intensified. We owe it to the many martyrs who have laid down their lives for an equal and non-sexist society.”

She said the event, held in partnership with UN Women, is “a bold and very strong statement that CPUT remains a progressive leader among its peers on women empowerment and gender equality”.

Ayanda Mvimbi, a programme specialist for UN Women, congratulated CPUT for being a champion university “to accept and launch the think-tank for gender equality and empowerment of women”.

“I want to emphasise the need to involve academia in gender equality and women’s empowerment. The research expertise can bring in much-needed data and evidence-based solutions to accelerate gender equality for a sustainable tomorrow.”

Prof Driekie Hay-Swemmer, Executive Director in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor, spoke on the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestigious STEM schools programme and said Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) were all fields still predominantly occupied by males.

Hay-Swemmer said the Vice-Chancellor believed that girls need to be exposed at a young age to the different careers available to them in STEM.  

“We would like to become the hub of STEM education in the Western Province. A beacon of hope and excitement, where the barriers and myths of maths are broken down. We wish to establish a world-class research chair in STEM education doing longitudinal studies, train and upscale educators, and be part of the next generation of scientists within a technology-enabled environment.”

The list of speakers and respondents included: Prof Beatrice Opeolu, Faculty of Applied Sciences; Ella Mangisa, Ilitha Labantu (CPUT partner); Dr Simon Nsengimana, Faculty of Business and Management Sciences; Tshitso Mosolodi, Snake Nation (CPUT partner); Nanga Codana, SRC President; Prof Tembisa Ngqondi: Dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Design; George Mvalo, Chairperson: Universities South Africa  Transformation Managers’ Forum and Nonele Ganyile, SRC Secretary General and a commitment pledge was signed by the various partners.

Nonkosi Tyolwana, Director of the Centre for Diversity, Inclusivity and Social Change, thanked the speakers and organisers.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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