Transcultural Research Trip to Pretoria, South Africa

The Transcultural Caravan, a project initiated and coordinated by the Leadership Excellence Institute Zeppelin (LEIZ) at Zeppelin University, organises the Transcultural Student Research Group (TSRG) annually. The theme for the 2024 collaborative research project TSRG is "Transcultural Perspectives on Sustainable Futures."

The project involves over 20 students from Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, University of Pretoria, HFU Business School, Vietnamese-German University, University of Lodz, and Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. The culmination of the TSRG project was a transcultural learning journey filled with transcultural learning experiences in the form of a joint research trip to Pretoria, South Africa, from July 21 to 27, 2024.

The activities commenced with a warm welcome from the leadership of the University of Pretoria, followed by a week filled with academic sessions, collaborative engagement with local students, and hands-on experiences:

• Throughout the program, there were theoretical sessions, including workshops, lectures, and joint feedback sessions that focused on topics such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and sustainability in Africa.
• Local experiences, such as visits to important historical sites, museums, and cultural activities, followed the academic inputs.
• The group visited important sites such as the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and the Apartheid Museum.
• Additionally, the group experienced social entrepreneurship during a visit to the Mamelodi Business Hub near Mamelodi Township, where they explored various approaches to integrating social, economic, and environmental sustainability to achieve long-term stability.
  
• The cultural part of the trip took the students to the Javett Art Centre and through various neighbourhoods of Pretoria to sample the local cuisine, such as Pap (maize porridge) and join in a South African cultural evening.

Our sincere thanks to the hosts of the research trip - the University of Pretoria and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network South Africa, particularly Kamagano Sethono, Priscilla Morley, and Elma Akob. We would also like to express our gratitude to the project manager of the TSRG, Jessica Geraldo Schwengber, to the project manager of the research trip, Quratul Aan from the LEIZ, and to all our partner universities, especially Ngoc Lan Dang, Julika Baumann Montecinos, Tomasz Kamiński, and Ruth Espinola Soriano de Mello, as well as to all the students involved! We extend our gratitude to the following local experts for their participation: Themba Mosia (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Pretoria), Loretta Feris, Stanley Ntakumba, Flavia Senkubuge, Richard Klepsch, Heinrich Bohlmann, Sean Kruger, and Onyinye Nwaneri.

The Transcultural Student Research Group of the Transcultural Caravan Network at Zeppelin University is carried out by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung as part of the Baden-Württemberg-STIPENDIUM program for university cooperations.

More detailed reports of the participants can be found on the pages of the Transcultural Caravan on LinkedIn. Transcultural Carawan on LinkedIn