The Good Neighbour Project was an explorative initiative in partnership with 2U/EdEx to explore the role corporate South Africa can play in improving the quality of life in urban communities that have been defined by the spatial legacy of the country’s past. At its core, the project was designed to strengthen the relationship between 2U and its local community and contribute towards improving the collective wellbeing of the company’s staff and the community of Salt River in which the company’s office campus is located. The first phase of the project included extensive mapping of perceptions of the Salt River neighbourhood and residents’ experiences of life in it as well as a survey of the 1,000-strong 2U workforce. A programme of action consisting of several small experiments aimed at utilising 2U’s infrastructure to strengthen some of the civic muscle of the neighbourhood was designed based on findings from these activities.
The only problem? It was never implemented. A two-episode audio case study on what went wrong, and what could be learned from the process is available for download below.
Nabeel Petersen of Pivot Collective, and Danyal Loofer of ACC, Laura Malan and Telltale Media were collaborators on this project.
