We shall be co-hosting the next UNESCO Chair REDS3 in-person event on Tuesday 21 October between 9am to 11am (UK time) in the Garden Room at St Edmund’s College, followed by a reflective workshop between 1pm and 3pm (UK time) with Professor Alain Tschudin.
“Communities as Custodians of Care” welcomes guest speakers:
- Professor Dorcas Ettang (UNESCO Co-Chair on
Education for Peace, Acting Director International
Centre of Nonviolence, DUT) - Dr Nqobile Msomi (St Edmund’s College’s Director of Wellbeing)
About the event:
In this highly relevant dialogue, we focus on communities as custodians of care, of the good, of peace. Dorcas Ettang will give a big-picture perspective, on communities as responsible for violence prevention and creating safer spaces for vulnerable groups, including women who have experienced GBV. Drawing on examples from various global contexts that employ community-based responses, challenges and opportunities will be highlighted. Complementing this, Nqobile Msomi shares how principles of community psychology can promote inclusion and collective wellbeing in higher education settings, reflecting on South Africa and the UK. She will explore what a sense of belonging and community mean for diverse graduate students. Thereafter, a futures-oriented reflective workshop helps us unpack the transformational potential of this theme to solidarity and peace.
Prof Dorcas Ettang is an Associate Professor and Acting Director of the International Centre of Nonviolence at the Durban University of Technology and was previously at the University of KwaZulu-Natal as a Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies Programme. She is a Y2 NRF-rated researcher. She has broad academic and professional interests in the fields of peace and security, publishing widely in this area. Her work explores the intersections between localised approaches to safety, grassroots peacebuilding, and the role of communities in preventing violence and fostering resilience. She is especially interested in how community-based strategies contribute to sustainable peace, human security, and inclusive security governance in both conflict-affected and post-conflict settings. Her research critically challenges state-dominant and state-centric narratives within peace and security discourse by highlighting the role of communities and grassroots non-state actors as active agents in shaping security outcomes. She explores how local actors contribute to, challenge, or complement state-led interventions, emphasizing the importance of community agency, local knowledge, and participatory approaches in the construction of inclusive and sustainable security frameworks. Since 2022, she sits on the editorial board and is an Associate Editor with Springer-Nature Social Sciences and sits on the international editorial board of the Journal of BRICS Studies (University of Johannesburg). She is also the UNESCO Gandhi-Montessori-Luthuli Co-Chair on Education for Peace and Transformative Solidarity and served as a board member for the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children. She holds a PhD in Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, an MA in Political Studies from the University of Windsor, Canada and a BA Honours Degree from Bishop’s University, Canada with minors in French, Public Administration and International Studies.
Dr Nqobile Msomi is a Chartered Psychologist and Director of Student Wellbeing at St Edmund’s at the University of Cambridge. She co-Chairs the Wellbeing Leads’s Network, an intercollegiate community of wellbeing leads across Cambridge’s 31 colleges. As a systems change strategist, she has led multicultural student support services in educational institutions and non-profit organisations in Africa and the UK. Dr Msomi works at the intersection of mental health and education development. A Research Associate in the Faculty of Education at Rhodes University and Visiting Scholar at Queen’s University Belfast (2022-2025), she has been engaged in collaborative projects with Queen’s University Belfast, Rhodes University and the University of Fort Hare, focusing on addressing socio-educational challenges in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Dr Msomi’s research and practice contributes to culturally-situated, community-based approaches to mental health in education settings, emphasising wellbeing as inextricably connected to community.
Event Flyer
