LLL Programme Opening Workshop 2024: Making the SDGs Practical and Accessible

The Listen Live and Learn Programme’s opening workshop was held in early February at the Huis Russel Bothman House (HRBH) Hall. The workshop aimed to set out the purpose of the programme – including its developmental framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, introduce the LLL Programme leadership and stakeholders, and to inspire the LLLers at the start of their year in the programme.

Setting the tone for the rest of the day, Dr Heidi October – Deputy Director: Leadership at the Centre for Student Life and Learning – welcomed the attendees and went on to remind them of their call to leadership as LLLers. “Take the opportunity today, Leadership is more than doing, it is also seeking out the why”, she said.

Lesley-Ann Pieterse, LLL Intern for Communication, shared that Dr October’s welcome “resonated then and continued to linger in my approach to the leadership role I have in the LLL Programme and my greater community”.

The keynote speaker for the workshop was Dr Jaisheila Rajput, founder and CEO of Tomorrow Matters Now – TOMA Now, a consulting firm that works in the ‘Green Economy’ with a global reach through its work in environmental sustainability. As an innovative leader in the environmental sustainability space, Dr Rajput has worked with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on her immense work experience, she focused her talk on the need to make the SDGs more practical and accessible through fostering diversity and inclusion in work done around the goals.

Speaking to the leadership development aspect of the LLL Programme, Dr Rajput highlighted the importance of agility, adaptability, and resilience in an ever-changing world where the climate crisis is becoming increasingly real (the hot February sun on the day was a pleasant reminder of this reality).

After the keynote presentation, several different stakeholders gave short presentations on their offerings to the LLLers, after which the different houses were given an opportunity to choose the SDGs which will anchor their programming for the year.

For Lebohang Imraan Titoti, a LLLer from Victoria Street, the biggest highlight was the different speakers and stakeholders invited to the workshop, “the guest speaker was really good, I found her presentation really inspiring, especially her comments that your degree does not define you.”

“Finally, I understood expectations that the LLL programme has of me, I also enjoyed the opportunity we were given to converge together as LLLers”, he added.

As the apex residential education offering at SU, the LLL programme places great emphasis on the development and broadening of thought leadership. The opening workshop was testament to this through its diverse range of speakers who inspired and reinspired the LLLers in their approach to leadership and the SDGs.