Abstract

Community involvement is one of the three pillars in higher education in South Africa (the other pillars being teaching and research). Students must get involved in outreach projects at various levels in their local communities. Outreach initiatives must be sustainable in order to prevent any discouragement in the targeted communities and with the students involved for future endeavours. The suggested steps to simplify the task of initiating a sustainable community endeavour, as proposed by the United States Department of Energy, will be used as a framework to evaluate the sustainability of a community outreach module at a higher education institution in South Africa. The concerns relating to sustaining the campus-community partnerships will be discussed, as well as the actions taken to sustain the projects executed by the students during their fieldwork. The paper will discuss the specific topics with regard to sustaining a community engagement module in higher education within the post-apartheid South African environmen