The Role of Higher Education Institutions in the Promotion of Collaborative Community Partnerships and Engagement: The Case of Federal Institute of Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

The promotion of community partnerships by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) represents the possibility of achieving sustainable development (SD), through the engagement and increment of actions to be produced by the HEIs and your students, local government, and stakeholders all together. This paper explores initiatives to promote SD carried out in the context of university outreach at the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina. Two programs established in collaboration with external partners and the community were explored, where students are active participants and protagonists of actions aimed at SD. In this sense, the objective of this paper is to identify and characterize two outreach programs, intending to disseminate and explain approaches aimed at training students as representative agents of education for sustainability, based on community partnerships established with the support of programs of this nature. Two programs were chosen to be discussed: the YES Women Program and the Island Mariculture Program. This choice results from the option for actions that have mechanisms for empowerment, engagement, autonomy, and inclusion of the community, where students become agents of intervention in local sustainability and possibly leaders for a sustainable future. As a result, the proposed actions proved to be effective in terms of SD, as several of its objectives are contemplated in both programs and students learn lessons for a sustainable future. This article is important because of the necessity to develop actions that promote and disseminate local engagement for sustainability through the HEIs, their students, and the outreach programs, as in the programs addressed. Collaborative community partnerships arising from HEIs and your students are seen as drivers of new methodologies, approaches, and ways of understanding and intervening in all the issues and the search for involved solutions for a more sustainable future.