Students from Cida City Campus have already touched the lives of 300 000 young people in 1 000 villages, towns, townships, and informal settlements around SA.
In their holidays, students go back to their own communities to pass on some of what they have learnt at Cida to the local residents. Their visits are the first moves in a major rural development project, named the Cida Extranet.
And it carries the slogan: "It takes a child to raise a village".
"This is a new kind of human asset strategy that uses the talent of SA's bright young people, who want to share their knowledge and skills with the nation," says Extranet co-ordinator Leigh Meinert.
Meinert and fellow Extranet co-ordinator Ann Lamont say success, in terms of community response, has been phenomenal. And they have plans to substantially expand the project.
"Over the next two years, Cida will reach 2m young people a year, with skilled student-trainers focusing on practical life skills and using well developed course materials on several critical subjects," says Meinert.
Living up to its full name - Community & Individual Development Association - Cida will teach school children learning and examination skills. Where computers are available, Cida will give instructions on computers. There are plans to give accountancy and maths support to pupils in these two critical areas of their studies. There are also plans to assist with bridging lessons in English.
"We are focusing on modules we hope will empower members of the communities most, and modules that support our key message of choice and hope - money management, HIV/Aids and personal welfare, and entrepreneurship," says Meinert.
The first programme ran in October, last year. "We had a very successful project with the help of a well-structured course from African Bank which they have tried and tested," says Lamont. "African Bank taught students the content of the course and took them through their facilitator training. Then students went back to their homes and taught people how to manage their money."
"During their 2002 midyear break, students went out and taught a range of subjects," says Meinert. "One student taught 458 people money management."
Entrepreneurship is a major focus. A four-part module was successfully piloted by 10 third-year students in June this year.
Cida students also serve as role models to the young people in their home communities.
"We are trying to give children choices and we are demonstrating, through our students, that they have choices. They see someone from the same community standing in front of them, talking in the same language from personal experience, telling them that people can change their lives by changing their behaviour," says Meinert.
Cida students get something equally important from the process. "It is a growth experience," says Meinert. "It gives our students so much confidence to teach others. And it reinforces their own knowledge. "
A spinoff from Extranet, but almost as important in its own right, is research data gathered by students.
Research will be a source of revenue for Cida because it has commercial value for a wide range of organisations and people, including government, businesses, aid agencies and politicians.
"We want to brand ourselves as a quality provider of mass market research that is relevant and, in this way, distinguish ourselves from other academic universities," says Meinert.
"We are building a network with extraordinary potential to reach, teach and ultimately change the nation," she says.
