Page 4 - DUT Conduit

PROF MARKS' AWARD-WINNING UFC PROJECTS
Waheeda Peters/Extracts from Govlaunch Podcast
Prof Marks, Director at Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) Urban Futures Centre, was recently awarded the Community Engagement Staff of the Year Award for initiating and leading mutually beneficial collaborations to service communities.
Prof Marks, who is no stranger to receiving accolades and awards for projects she and her team undertake, also won the DUT Data Day Award for a special project presentation. Her work is recognised nationally and globally, particularly in regard to projects and research in the field of harm reduction.
In 2020, the Community Engagement Office, under the D VC Research Innovation and Engagement, launched the very first Community Engagement Showcase and Pitching Awards that recognise projects initiated by both staff and students. These efforts were meant to establish a baseline of the type of work and engagements taking place in this area aligned to ENVISION 2030 and embedded within the Research and Innovation and Teaching and Learning core functions of the university. They recognise staff who have shown exceptional commitment to community engagement work in the last 12 months.
Prof Marks won R10 000 for her initiation and for leading mutually beneficial collaborations to service communities.
Prof Marks has led a number of significant community engagement projects since joining DUT in 2014. The first engagement project, conceived and managed in collaboration with Dr Kira Erwin, was the Kenneth Gardens Community Engagement Project. Kenneth Gardens is the largest municipal housing estate in the city of Durban, which provides subsidised housing to approximately 1 500- 1 800 individuals. Over an extended period, a number of engagement projects were run, including computer skills training for young adults, capacity building for NPOs in the estate and capoeira classes for children. But perhaps most significant was the running of a weekly Wellness Clinic by the DUT Homeopathic Clinic, which works closely with the UFC.
More recently, Prof Marks has been in the press both locally and internationally for
a harm reduction project she and a team of collaborators began at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown. Initially developed as an emergency response to manage withdrawals among Durban’s homeless population, it is now a fully-fledged harm reduction centre. The Bellhaven Harm Reduction Centre provides a range of services to low-income and homeless people who use drugs. Roughly 200 people access the centre daily to receive medical and pscyho-social treatment.
Prof Marks is a member of the eThekwini Homeless Committee, which is led by the Deputy Mayor, Belinda Scott. The Committee brings together a variety of non-state organisations and government officials to respond to the issue of homelessness in eThekwini. Prof Marks is the Deputy Chair of this Committee.
“Nothing really significant was initiated in terms of service provision to homeless people until full lockdown in South Africa. About a week before that, the homeless committee met and we were very concerned about how to deal with homeless people who were likely to be victimised for not being able to adhere to the regulations, but also were concerned about homeless people carrying the virus into the general community and also vice versa,” she said.
She further said that 12 safe spaces with a variety of services were created for homeless people to stay during the lockdown. “We quickly realised that general medical services were necessary because many of the homeless people had chronic illnesses like TB, HIV and hepatitis, which were not receiving any medical attention. And so, a fair amount of time was put into providing a link to services and two chronic medications for them,” she said.
Prof Marks indicated that about 60% of homeless people going into the lockdown
facilities would be deprived of their drugs – mostly opiates – not by choice, but by circumstance.
“The concerns were that if people were withdrawing and they were looking for a fix, they would be breaking lockdown regulations by trying to get out of the safe spaces. So, from basically day one, we began as a private entity on two government sites providing harm reduction services in the form of short- term opiate substitution therapy,” she said.
Prof Marks relayed that this is the first of its kind in the country, because previously in relation to government, the approach to drug use has always been one of prohibition and abstinence. Harm reduction recognises that many people who use drugs are unwilling or unable to stop using, and that effective interventions need to meet people where they are at and allow them to self-determine their goals, which could range from abstinence to a reduction in use. Harm reduction is underpinned by substantive evidence globally and is viewed as the best practice approach to drug use disorders by the World Health Organization.
Prof Marks shared with us her work during lockdown. “We ran throughout the 10 to 12 weeks of strong lockdown a very structured programme of providing medical assistance through using methadone for people who were having severe and moderate withdrawals, all funded by private donors, not by government,” she said.
She stressed that this intervention was for her and the team a real win, because it meant that the Municipality has recognised that a harm reduction approach is a best practice, evidence-based approach to dealing with substance use disorders rather than the strong arm of the law, tough love or pushing for excellence. The eThekwini Municipality
Pictured: Professor Monique Marks.
Council has gone as far as to dedicate one of its buildings for use as a harm reduction centre.
Prof Marks said that going forward, the most complex issue will be raising funds for this programme to continue for as long as possible. On a daily basis, more than 200 people access services at Bellhaven Harm Reduction Centre and every day there are people wanting to join. The capacity of the Centre currently is 200. She and her team are appealing to the international donor community for funding for this particular service. She is also advocating for financial and in-kind support from government at both local and national levels.
While this project is in itself a massive undertaking, Prof Marks is now working with a team of harm reduction advocates to establish a second harm reduction centre in the CBD. A key partner is Urban Lime, an organisation that focuses on urban regeneration and others include Advance Access and Delivery, TB HIV Care, and the South African Network of People who Use Drugs.
Prof Marks also shared that law enforcement was on board from the beginning of this project. “We now have a whole bunch of police officers who have become very strong advocates of harm reduction and I think that that is incredibly exciting,” she said. This is remarkable given that law enforcement officers globally are known for blocking harm reduction programmes and interventions.
The Urban Futures Centre at DUT (UFC@DUT) is based in the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment. It serves as the central node for a network of projects, institutions, practitioners and academics involved in making sense of the future of cities locally and internationally. At the core of the activities of the centre is a concern with the real people who live in cities, and improving their quality of life. Particular attention is given to marginal and vulnerable groupings.
DUT INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED FOR ITS
INNOVATION AND EXCELLENCE
Simangele Zuma
The Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), located in the United States, recently awarded the 2021 Global Award for Innovation and Excellence in Internationalisation to the Durban University of Technology (DUT) during their virtual awards ceremony held in February this year.
DUT is extremely proud of this achievement as this was the first time that an African university had won the award. This also marked the first time in the long history of the AIEA that a university based outside of the USA and Europe was honoured with the Global Award for Innovation and Excellence in Internationalisation.
Giving insight into this achievement, the Director of International Education and Partnerships at DUT Dr Lavern Samuels said that he had recently received the news from Dr Darla Deardorff, AIEA’s Executive Director. Dr Samuels, who is also the Chair of Directors Forum and former President of the International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA), said that it was a great honour for DUT to receive this award. He said that DUT was finding new ways of engaging internationalisation over the last few years and had internationalised the curriculum so that the benefit was evident across the University.
Pictured: Dr Lavern Samuels, Director of International Education and Partnerships at DUT.
“It is a unique honour for us to receive this award, particularly with it not being awarded to any other South African university before. It allows us to take our place in international education as a university of excellence, and that makes us really proud. It follows up on many other accolades for the University, particularly the World University Rankings that we achieved in 2020. It builds the reputation of the University and it means a lot to be recognised as a university of excellence,” said Dr Samuels proudly.
He said that ordinarily, DUT would have been invited to the USA to receive this award, however, AIEA hosted a virtual conference this year due to the global pandemic. Dr Samuels expressed his gratitude to his team at the International Office at DUT, whom he said had worked extremely hard to ensure that DUT remains at the forefront of international education.
“We have brought in collaborative online international learning as a form of virtual engagement. We have engaged with partners across the world, and we have engaged in internationalisation of the curriculum. We have worked hard with faculties and units in ensuring that internationalisation is embedded into the activities of the University,” said Dr Samuels.
4