Thinking out loud about belonging

From the founder

Why BelongWell4Life

BelongWell4Life began with a question I could not put down. For years my work at Stellenbosch University was about helping students flourish: how they study, how they think, how they cope when things get hard. Again and again, underneath the questions about marks and motivation, I found a quieter one. Do I belong here?

When a student answers that question with a no, everything else gets harder. A difficult test feels like proof. A lonely weekend feels like a verdict. And when the answer becomes a yes, a great deal becomes possible. The research on belonging says this clearly, and so did the students we worked with.

So we tested whether a university could help, with colleagues in the Faculty of Engineering, and the results were encouraging enough to be published. But the bigger lesson was not about universities at all. Belonging is not something you either find or miss. It is built, by ordinary people who start the circle, welcome the newcomer and keep the group together. Ubuntu has always known this: a person is a person through other persons.

BelongWell4Life is for those builders. These reflections are where I think out loud about what I have learnt along the way, and what it might mean for the community you care about.

Dr Alten du PlessisFounder, BelongWell4Life