ARU students return from practicum
ARU students return from practicum
On May 1st, 2023, students from the African Rural University (ARU) successfully returned from a
transformative one-month Practicum that began on April 1st, 2023.
The One-Month Village Practicum is a supervised participatory fieldwork experience designed for
second-year students at ARU. Its purpose is to empower students to bring about positive change in rural
communities by putting into practice the knowledge they have gained in the classroom. Prior to the
Practicum, students receive theoretical training on various subjects such as the principles of the creative
process, systems thinking, integrated rural development, and more, providing them with a solid
foundation in rural transformation.
During the Practicum, each ARU student is placed in the home of a parent who has a child attending
URDT Girls School. This arrangement allows the student to immerse themselves in the URDT/ARU
methodology and approach to rural transformation while receiving guidance and mentorship from both
the parents and the Epicenter Managers. Over the course of one month, the intern actively contributes
to and strengthens the ongoing projects of the host family, thereby gaining practical experience in their
chosen field.
The Practicum covers a wide range of development aspects, including health, nutrition, sanitation,
agriculture, and appropriate technologies for rural transformation. Its main objectives are:
Facilitating the process of empowering individuals to realize their role in their own development.
Facilitating the process of enabling communities to formulate and implement their own visions and
action plans.
Assisting communities in developing strategies for self-help and self-reliance through active community
participation.
Promoting the recognition and utilization of the interrelationships between various development
concerns, such as health, nutrition, sanitation, agriculture, water management, rural technologies,
income generation, and the environment, to foster a holistic approach to development.
By the end of the one-month Practicum, students are equipped with practical skills and knowledge,
enabling them to establish epicenter villages where transformation can begin.
