From Participant to Scholar: A Decolonial Journey Through Community Engagement

When I first arrived at Rhodes University in 2018, fresh-faced and eager, I viewed community engagement through the lens of many students, as an optional addition to my academic journey. However, I soon realized its deeper value: it fosters holistic student development while strengthening the university-community relationship and, most importantly, uplifting marginalized voices. That realization came when I joined the Nine Tenths Mentoring Programme in 2019. What began as a simple commitment, mentoring a Grade 12 learner once a week, evolved into the most transformative education of my life, one that unfolded not in classrooms, but in the homes, streets, and lived realities of Makhanda’s youth.

Nine Tenths, one of Rhodes University’s flagship community engagement initiatives, pairs university students with local high school learners. On paper, it is an academic support programme. In practice, it became my introduction to the radical notion that true learning is reciprocal. Meeting my first mentee, a sharp-eyed 17-year-old, completely changed my perception of community engagement and the role that volunteers should be playing.

The award-winning Nine Tenths Mentoring Programme, a recipient of the prestigious McJannet Award for Global Citizenship, reflects Rhodes University’s mission to meaningfully bridge the gap between the institution and the Makhanda community. Established in 2016, the programme works with non-fee-paying, historically disadvantaged schools that often lack resources. More than just an academic initiative, it creates spaces where university students and high school learners dismantle the hidden hierarchies of South African education—hierarchies that perpetuate inequality and exclusion.

Many of the learners involved in the programme historically would not have been able to access higher education due to systemic and epistemic barriers. These barriers are not a reflection of a deficit in intelligence but rather a clash of epistemologies, (Mbembe, 2016; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018), an insight that would later inform my research into decolonial education.

As I transitioned from mentor to student leader in 2020, my perspective on community engagement deepened. Coordinating other students and playing a key role in the programme’s operations forced me to confront uncomfortable questions about the university’s role in Makhanda. Were we simply perpetuating a system where privileged students “helped” disadvantaged communities in ways that were ultimately performative? Or could we build something more transformative (Zembylas, 2018)? This tension led me to research how community engagement can serve as a site of decolonial praxis. What I discovered both challenged and inspired me. Programmes like Nine Tenths demonstrate that when done thoughtfully, community engagement can:

1.     Break down traditional power dynamics in education. The most effective mentors were not those who positioned themselves as experts but those who learned to listen. One of my mentees, for instance, completely reshaped my understanding of resilience when she shared how she studied by candlelight after long days caring for her siblings. True engagement happens when we recognize the knowledge and strength already present in communities (Santos, 2014).

2.     Reveal how education policies fail marginalized learners. When multiple mentees described identical struggles with certain subjects, I traced it back to systemic issues, such as underqualified teachers being shuffled between township schools, an issue requiring advocacy, not just mentoring (Spaull, 2015).

3.     Showcase the richness of community-driven education. One of the most striking lessons came not from structured mentoring sessions but from an afternoon spent with community members discussing local history. Through storytelling, I gained insights into Makhanda’s past that no textbook had ever offered me. These moments highlighted the importance of valuing indigenous knowledge and lived experiences as part of the educational process (Smith, 2012).

Yet significant barriers remain. Too often, community engagement is treated as an extracurricular activity rather than being integrated into curricula and research agendas. Assessment rubrics rarely value the deep, contextual knowledge gained through community work, privileging instead conventional academic outputs (Heleta, 2016). While Rhodes University has made strides in shifting from a charity model to a justice-oriented approach, much work remains in ensuring genuine decision-making power for community partners (Pillay, 2015).

Since joining community engagement, I have been able to publish articles, attend the Talloires Network Next Generation Leaders Conference and the Rhodes Community Engagement Conference, and connect with brilliant scholars who have introduced me to even more remarkable minds. From becoming a volunteer to a mentor and now a researcher, this journey has been deeply enriching, both academically and personally.

As I prepare to present this research at the upcoming IARSLCE conference, I am reminded that my most important lessons have come not from theory but from practice, from my former mentee’s insightful questions, from community elders’ patient corrections of my assumptions, and from the hard-won trust built over years of consistent engagement. These experiences have convinced me that decolonizing education is not about discarding the university’s resources but repositioning them as tools for communities to determine their own educational futures. What began as a few hours of mentoring has grown into a lifelong commitment to educational justice, proof that when community engagement is approached with humility and reciprocity, it does not just transform communities; it transforms the transformers.

As I reflect on this journey, I extend an invitation to those engaged in higher education and community work: let us reimagine community engagement not as charity or service, but as a shared site of learning, transformation, and justice. We must commit to practices that centre the voices and leadership of marginalized communities, rethink the policies that separate academia from lived experience, and honour indigenous and local knowledge systems. Decolonizing community higher education and community engagement requires a collective willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about our institutions and ourselves, and the courage to build new, more equitable ways forward.

This reflection also connects to a paper I have written, which is set to be published in the upcoming issue of the African Journal of Higher Education Community Engagement (AJHECE). There, I explore in greater depth how community engagement can serve as a site of decolonial praxis within South African higher education. I hope this ongoing conversation continues to expand, not only in conferences and classrooms but also in our everyday practices, mentoring relationships, and institutional policies where real change can take root.

References
Heleta, S. (2016). Decolonization of higher education: Dismantling epistemic violence and Eurocentrism in South Africa. Transformation in Higher Education, 1(1), 1-8.
Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29-45.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2018). Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and decolonization. Routledge.
Pillay, S. (2015). Decolonizing the humanities. The Johannesburg Salon, 9, 1-15.
Santos, B. de S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge.
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books.
Spaull, N. (2015). Schooling in South Africa: How low-quality education becomes a poverty trap. South African Child Gauge, 12, 34-41.
Zembylas, M. (2018). Decolonial possibilities in higher education: Reconfiguring human rights through affect and relationality. Higher Education, 76(4), 703-718.

Nigel Machiha is a PhD candidate in Political and International Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa. His research focuses on migration, diaspora studies, and transnationalism, with a particular interest in the lived experiences of migrants and their complex relationships with their nation-states. Nigel Machiha’s research also extends to community engagement, higher education transformation, and the decolonization of academia. He explores how universities can foster more inclusive, socially relevant curricula and engage meaningfully with marginalized communities, aligning education with broader societal decolonization efforts.

Open to connect at machihanigel@gmail.com