by Bate Felix
Nestled between the Timbavati game reserve and the Kruger National Park, some 500km from the Wits main campus, is a modern facility, specifically designed to focus research on poorly resourced rural communities.
The Wits rural facility, in the lowveld of Limpopo, is fast gaining a reputation as a base for research, attracting scientists from all over the world, conducting studies in such diverse fields as health, biodiversity and development.
This falls in line with the vice-chancellor’s vision of Wits for the next decade: that it should stand at the forefront of research which is relevant and contributes to the development of the community.
The facility caters for researchers and students who are engaged in long-term and short-term research projects in rural communities.
“It serves as a rural station of Wits University, fulfilling its role as a permanent base for a long-term researcher,” said Laura Yeatman, WRF manager. It also supports shorter-term student training and experiential learning.
Capable of accommodating 84 people at a time, the facility consists of a 40-bed dormitory, 25 staff houses and a variety of en-suite bachelor flats and rondavals. It also has 18 offices with high-speed ISDN telephone connectivity, and four seminar rooms.
Once a private game reserve, the property was bought by Wits in 1988, and upgraded to create a comfortable base from which researchers could carry out their work.
The facility will be able to make a meaningful contribution to the new South Africa, providing an environment where trained professionals across various disciplines tackle many development challenges. The WRF’s proximity to poor rural communities makes it convenient for this type of research.
“It provides opportunities for academic and civic engagement, thus enhancing the university’s relevance to the community,” said Yeatman.
“Without the facility, it would have been impossible to carry out the type of research we are doing,” said Tara Polzer, director of the rural research arm of the forced migration programme.
Having spent three years permanently in the facility, Polzer said there was a range of benefits that made the WRF an attractive research base even for international scholars.
“It is a nice place to live in.It provides a community of academics and activists who carry out research in various areas. Though small, the cumulative effects give a positive image of wits in the community,” She said.
About 10 research programmes are currently using the facility on a permanent basis.
The Sustaining Natural Resources in African Ecosystems (SUNRAE) programme studies the ecological basis for sustainable rural livelihoods and development.
SUNRAE’s director, Wayne Twine, has been living at the facility for the past seven years. He said the programme laid special emphasis on the uses of indigenous plants and the consequences for biodiversity of changes in land use.
The Rural Aids Development Action Research Programme (RADAR),in collaboration with other research programmes, studies the effects of poverty and gender inequalities and Aids mortality on rural areas. They also study the household use of natural resources and capacity building around care for orphans.
Various Wits departments, other South African Universities and foreign universities like Yale and Oxford, use the facility for developmental studies on equity and justice, water and sanitation and effects of displacements.
The fruits of these research programmes can be seen in more than 100 publications.The facility has also seen about 1500 students trained in the areas being studied.
The WRF is open to all those who would like to use it for research.
To contact the WRF, visit www.wits.ac.za/wrf
Wits Rural Facility,
P/Bag X420, Acornhoek, 1360, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0)15 793 7500 •
Fax: +27 (0)15 793 7509
Email: yeatmanl@tiscali.co.za
