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Categories: News from Busco

Objectives for the First Year Have Been Realized

Busco project – Building Sustainable and resilient Communities through co-creation universities and communities in Tanzania and Finland – started on April1, 2017. The project aimed at proactive start of the activities. To a large extent the goals for the first year have been realized in the project.

The first priority was piloting of the joint Master programme. The Master of Community development, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution was launched in September in Finland, when the first group of 22 students started their studies. The group of students participated in 10-days intensive course organised in the university of Iringa on October 2017. The Master studies has been run online through MoodreRooms online platform by Diak’s lecturers and experts.

Breakthrough in ICT capacity enables online Master programme

A big breakthrough of the first year in the project was to build up ICT capacity and e-learning capacity in Iringa and SEKOMU to make running online Master programme possible. Once the result on accreditation has arrived, universities are ready to launch the programme.

At the moment, the Master programme is still waiting for the accreditation of Tanzanian Commission of Universities (TCU).

Living Labs have been set up

Thematic living labs have progressed well. Extensive baseline surveys and analysis have been made in the Living Labs on Entrepreneuship, Ecotourism, Community development, Councelling and Law. The project key experts has been working closely together with local stakeholders to build project activities on local needs.

The first steps of the action plans are training of local entrepreneurs and other stakeholders to develop their activities. As a first step the councelling clinic linked to the University of Iringa started it’s operation already in 2017.

From analysis towards implementing

Curriculum review activities and Quality assurance have equally been started with the baseline analysis of development needs and will continue with action plans how to implement the project objectives into practice.

The key experts from Haaga-Helia have made significant contribution in training of the Living Labs methodology and quality assurance.

Towards mid-term evaluation and joint meeting

The key experts have gathered in Diak, Iringa and SEKOMU to prepare work plans, follow the progress and agree on next steps. The next meeting will be in the autumn 2018 in Iringa to discuss about the first experiences of actions. It is also time for mid-term evaluation of the Busco-project.

Text: Dr. Elsa Keskitalo, Project Manager, Diak