Community Engagement
I am currently seeking partnerships with local third sector organisations in Leeds and its surrounding areas.
Throughout my time in Waco, Texas, I worked to develop reciprocal partnerships between local community organisations and my university students. As a result, students in my upper-division writing courses engaged in community-based writing projects, which enhanced their rhetorical and design knowledge as well as developed their professional portfolios and employability skills. Students in Technical Writing wrote proposals and feasiblity reports while Professional Writing & Rhetoric majors in Professional & Workplace Writing composed brochures, flyers, videos, social media posts, and other promotional materials. Equally important, community partners received support, creative ideas, and fresh energy. These community-engaged projects can be life-giving for everyone involved when they are designed with care and respect, and when we take the time to build trust.
Here are some of the local organizations and schools that my students in Waco partnered with over the past few years:
- Mission Waco
- World Hunger Relief Farm
- Foster Village Waco
- Heart of Texas - American Red Cross
- Caritas of Waco
- Talitha Koum Institute
- STARS Book Clubs
- Piper Center for Family Studies & Child Development
- Waco-McLennan County Public Library
- Heart of Texas Therapeutic Riding Center
- Texas ACE After School Program
- Animal Birth Control Clinic
- Keep Waco Beautiful
- Waco Independent School District
- Act Locally Waco
If you are involved with an organization and would like to partner with Leeds University students on a future project, please contact d [dot] williams2 [at] leeds.ac.uk. I am also interested in developing interdisciplinary partnerships as part of my work with The CENTRE (Community-Engagement Network in Research, Education and Civic Engagement) at the University of Leeds.