Fighting the good fight

Students from the various schools at Monash South Africa in Ruimsig were involved in a stiff competition to outdo each other by helping out in their communities. The Here for Good project, put students from various faculties within Monash against each other to see who will spend the most hours doing volunteer and community work with communities in Cosmo City, Muldersdrift and Kromdraai.

Craig Rowe, head of Community Engagement at Monash said, “The Here for Good launch in February was held during Orientation Week as the first of a series of monthly competitions that will culminate in a grand finale at the end of the year.”

During this time a total of 1281 volunteer hours were completed and the winning faculty was the Business and Economics which recorded a total of 492 hours. Students dug trenches to divert water away from school facilities, they helped distribute new school uniforms for each child in one school and initiated a project to audit text books at another as well as cleaning and picking up rubbish.

“Here for Good fits in very well with our existing volunteering and community engagement projects which have always played a very important role in Monash student life,” remarked Rowe. He further explained that Monash South African community engagement supports student participation in programmes such as volunteer placements, service learning initiatives, student and staff volunteer organisations.