​In pursuit of making entrepreneurship top priority among other educational programmes, the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Social Economy (CSESE) has partnered with Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), in Scotland, on the Common Good First pilot project.

An endeavour to raise the profile of social entrepreneurship through digital storytelling, the Common Good First project will be creating a space in which social enterprises can share best practices that feed into academic research and student study material. Over the past six months, teams at UJ and GCU documented the stories of twelve projects under the theme Youth and Education, and the test of proof of concept was reported to be successful.

Recently, Resolution Circle hosted the CSESE team, corporates and the organisations that participated in the project. The team in Glasgow joined in via Skype along with their project participants. GCU President; Pamela Gilles and UJ’s Prof Roodt addressed the teams both at UJ and at GCU.

Julie Adair, Director: Digital Collaboration, GCU, outlined the outcomes of the project and how the pilot project will be taken forward. Adair placed specific focus on applying for funding and collaborations with a network of universities and corporate partners in South Africa and Scotland to expand the scope of the project.

UJ participants then shared their experiences, challenges and what works in their businesses with peers doing similar work in Scotland via Skype. The social enterprises profiled by the South African team included Desk Bags, Fear Free Life, Kliptown Youth Programme, Nik Mkuffins, Siyafunda Community Technology Centre, and Tshepang Programme for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children.

To learn, read more and follow the progress of the projects, click here: http://pilot.commongoodfirst.com/

To view some of the Common Good First videos, follow this link: https://vimeo.com/user45218535