A One Health Approach to Community Health, Development, Conservation, and Environmental Justice in Mbhashe, South Africa

Faculty Mentors

Dr. Mara Dicenta and Camille Andrews

Project Description

W&M students are conducting conservation, sociology, development, and public health research to support efforts to develop a community-led management strategy to promotes peace and prosperity of the communities of Mbhashe, Eastern Province South Africa.

Solving global health, development, and conservation challenges requires a multidisciplinary approach rooted in understanding of and commitment to justice. 

The community-led Battle of Lurwayizo Development initiative in Mbhashe South Africa emerged from a poignant historical event and catalyzed a vision that transcends conflict into a future of harmony and progress. Rooted in the lessons learned from the Battle of Lurwayizo, this development initiative is grounded in a commitment to fostering peace and sustainable advancement in the community it serves. The initiative works to integrate diverse perspectives and expertise and to allow progress to arise from collective effort and collaboration. 

In collaboration with BOLD, W&M students are conducting research to support the community-led development and implementation of an integrative management strategy that supports public health, biodiversity conservation, development of local communities, youth empowerment, and environmental and social justice. 

In 2023 and 2024, W&M students conducted research on opportunities for ecotourism that commemorates the Battle as a livelihood strategy and explored opportunities to improve access of local communities to health care through improved community health worker programs and the integration of traditional and western medicine.

The students also explored how local farming and ranching communities in Mbhashe are impacted by their forceable removal from Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserves and explored how to acknowledge and document the important role that local communities play in landscape scale biodiversity across the region. 

In 2025, W&M students will have a unique opportunity to work with BOLD to document and share oral histories of veterans of the Battle and of local community members in order to help idenitify links between social and racial injustice, biodiversity conservation, and human wellbeing.

Number of Students

2

Prerequisites and Required Skills:

Travel

W&M students will travel to the Eastern Province of South Africa to collect oral histories from community members. This is a remote area of S Africa where running water, electricity and wifi are limited. Students should be prepared to learn from a new culture, to travel on dusty roads for long periods of time, hike for long periods of time, and to enjoy the flexibility and unknown of traveling in a new place.

Project ID

23-023-23 - Semester

23-029-24 - Semester

23-029-25 - CRP Year