Global College Ambo Campus has organized Community Forum on the theme Roles of Higher Education Institutions on Community Engagement.
The major objectives of the forum were:
1. To share International and National Experiences of HEI on Community Engagement;
2. To Create Awareness on varies of the activities that have been done so far by Global College.
3. To get feedback from the stakeholders for the activities to be done in the future.
Having the above mentioned major objectives, the college held the forum on 27/8/2015 E.C with the different stakeholders came from different sectors of government offices, NGOs and Private sectors. As obvious, the forum started with ‘Abbaa Gadaas’ blessings. Nextly, Mr. Kumala Bekele, General Manager of the College made welcoming speech and warmly welcomed all the honorable guests and participants of the forum. Besides, Deputy Administrator of West Shewa Zone, Mr. Takalegn Yimamu, guest of honor of the day made opening speech. He made a fascinating and sensational speech and declared the official opening of the forum. He said, everything is nothing without education so that quality education should be emphasized and seriously worked up on with all the stakeholders because quality education cannot be achieved without the active involvement of all the concerned bodies. He added that Global College has done a lot on community Engagement. For instance, they constructed houses for people who were displaced from Somale Region and needy house hold in Ambo town, provided sport equipment for the different 9 weredas of West Shewa, donated many books for West Shewa Education office, bought Health Insurance for many needy people, Supported Borana People affected by drought etc.
Two presentations were presented to the participants: The first presentation was made by Dr. Mokonin Kejela on the topic of the Role of HEI on Community Engagement and he explained that the major objective of this presentation is to share International and National Experiences that HEIs have on Community Engagement. In his presentation he raised issues about the three Pillars of HEIs (Teaching-Learning, Researching and Community Engagement), and he emphasized on the day’s topic which is Community Engagement by raising the international and National experiences. Specially, experiences of Asian countries and American on Community Engagement was discussed and the national experiences of Ethiopian HEIs (public and Private) were pointed.
The second presentation was made by the president of the college, Mr. Dereje Bekele on major Community Engagement Activities that have been done so far by the college. This was made because of two things: one, for creating awareness to the stakeholders about the Community Engagement activities done by the college and the second was to initiate other HEIs (private and public) to dedicate themselves and stand by the side of their communities because this is one of the pillars of HEIs.
Mr. Dereje said that Global College is working it best to achieve it vision to become renowned Institution of HEI in teaching Learning, Research, Community Engagement, and Training in East Africa. He added that beside the quality Education they have been providing, with the effort the institution is devoting on the research works and community engagement they have been doing, it is not far to achieve the vision of the college mentioned above. Mr. Dereje mentioned that since 4 years the college have done different community Engagement activities with more than 4 million Birr. Some of Community Engagement activities done include: Full scholarship for needy students, Providing educational services for Prisoners in Rehabilitation center, Construction of houses for internally displaced people (IDP), Construction of Passengers waiting areas in Ambo bus station, Supply of Materials and foods for needy people, Supply of sports materials for different woredas of West Shewa zone, Sponsoring Health Insurance, Feeding Street Children, Acquisition of bonds, Material supply for elders and people with disability, Donation of books for West Shewa zone education office, Providing training for Women entrepreneurs, Sponsoring Hachalu Hundessas’ football club, Monetary support for Borena people affected by drought, Participating on different sports festivals prepared at zonal & regional level, Cleaning Environment & participating on green legacy, Monetary support to Ambo City administration during Covid. 19 and Feeding Primary school students (Support is given in kind).
The Participants raised very vital ideas during the discussion session and some of the major ideas raised include: Such occasions should be continued and all the private colleges need to do what global college did today, the participants mentioned that Global College is within the communities and the communities are with global college; the college is really dedicated to serve the communities and this should be a lesson for other private colleges everywhere; they forwarded that they are in doubt that global college is working for profit; they said that challenges became a corner stone for global college because if there were no challenges you might did all these and keep doing the good things because people are on side of you ; Discussing with stakeholders is very vital for institutions because institution without the community is legs less; the college is working for the nation/generation and you will get the benefits from the generations not today; the participants from COC center said that they are the eye witness that the college has done best on COC; the college deserves thanking Providing educational services ( TVET and Degree Program) for Prisoners in Rehabilitation center; the college accepts the communities suggestions that is why the college is shining; they said that global college is visionary and its vision is great with the effective managements and workers you have you can do more than what you have done; they depicted that the college has good name in the communities because it is providing quality education, research and above all the different community engagement activities don so far; the participants said that the college did not do all these because it has money, but it has vision; they participants witnessed that the college has disciplined students and we have seen this during their internship at our institutions.
The participants said that this is the first time we have seen private college discussing with the community by asking them what to do for the communities and this convinced us that global college is not profit oriented rather its community oriented; the college is working its best to bring the our communities development and growth (Prosperity); great ideas will come from communities and these ideas are of paramount for the successfulness of organizations working within community. Mr. Dawit Negeri, the chair person during the forum acknowledged the participants for all the ideas they raised and said that we use the ideas as in put for our future activities. Finally, the participants and invited guests visited the three campuses of the college.
