The Nelspruit Campus in the North-Eastern Region in collaboration with Tirisano Collaborative and Community Engagement Projects in the College of Human Science’s Department of Sociology hosted a community and workplace dialogue themed Diversity and transformation in the workplace.

This came about after the project leader realised the significance of working across the regions to expand on the work that has been done in previous years in Gauteng. The dialogue aimed at provoking conversations with purpose and conversation that build, develop and empower students, staff and community members to be able to live to their potential. It also aims to address any forms of barriers that may exist in the workplace, community and student environments such as, culture, race, sexuality, sexual orientation, gender and diversity issues which create difference and miss understanding.

In his welcoming address, Dr Lesiba Phineas Molepo, North-Eastern Regional Deputy Director, said we should cover different types of diversities and we must all challenge ourselves and ask how would what we do impact on a person who is living with disability. This will help us in accommodating people with disabilities and making them feelmore welcome in our institutions. “We have never had this kind of workshop in a while here on our campus and this is the beginning of the new development that will be sustained to benefit our community,” he said.

Vusi Mkwanazi agreed with Dr Molepo and further stated that when we talk about diversity we must understand that there is workplace diversity and community diversity. This was in light of the presence of members of Transnet, Spar and the Legal Fraternity, who came and shared some of the experiences of diversity in the private sector.

“As we sit here we don’t have the same diversity because when we look at you we may see men and race, gender, and this shows that diversity is much bigger, and this is why we should have a conversation about this,” said Leon Roets, Project Manager.

He added: “We started this project by saying that the number of people who are infected by HIV is growing and that was a cause for concern to say that something is not okay, and we have to have conversations about it. We cannot talk about HIV without talking about gender, racism, and socioeconomic status such as unemployment, poverty, rural versus urban and classes where the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming bigger and bigger.

“Diversity is the space whereby we start to look at all these issues and obviously, we cannot resolve everything just by sitting here and having this conversation, but we hope that it will give you courage to go to your home, to your friends and to the workplaces and say, we need to have a conversation about diversity issues.”

The Tirisano Collaborative and Community Engagement Projects look forward to having more of these dialogues so that they can bring both the workplace, students, community and the university under one roof to talk about these sensitive issues.

* Submitted by Stanley Namokhota (Tirisano Collaborative and Community Engagement Projects)