Team builds community engagement in Spain

By Leanne Coleman

The CDU Community Engagement team recently attended the 2011 Talloires Network Leaders Conference: "Building the engaged university" at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain.

A key message of the conference was that an increasing number of universities around the world were engaging with their communities, to the benefit of both the communities and the institutions.

CDU Community Engagement Projects Manager Nicole Manapol said one of the highlights was CDU inclusion in the newly released book “The Engaged University: International Perspectives on Civic Engagement.

“The conference brought together nearly 200 higher education leaders from over 40 countries to discuss the future of the global movement for civic engagement, community outreach, and social responsibility in higher education,” Ms Manapol said.

“The Northern Territory shares many of the same geographical and environmental challenges with countries in the developing world.

“As an Australian university CDU is fortunate to have the human capital, political stability and resource to innovate, conduct research and find solutions to problems of local, national and international significance.

“This makes us uniquely positioned to respond and contribute to this growing global movement both at home and abroad.”

As part of the event the team represented the Lakeside Drive Community Garden (LDCG) to receive a prestigious 2011 MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship that recognises exceptional student civic engagement initiatives in universities around the world.

The LDCG was initiated in 2008 by the CDU Talloires students and received third place in the MacJannet Prize.
LDCG coordinator Anjea Travers said the $1000 prize money would be used to develop the garden, which highlighted various perspectives on sustainability in northern Australia.