SoWEGloW – Social Work Education for a Global World: Innovating for Transformative Change

SoWEGloW is an international project dedicated to strengthening existing collaboration and institutional partnerships in social work education. It is built upon a partnership between the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) in Norway, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in India, and the University of Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa.

Project owner

Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

Project categories

Developmental Project

Project period

January 2025 - December 2028

Project summary

India and South Africa face significant challenges related to poverty, exclusion, oppression, and discrimination of vulnerable groups, particularly those at the intersections of factors like caste, race, gender, class, and religion. Simultaneously, traditionally seen as egalitarian, Norway is experiencing increasing cleavages and inequalities among different societal groups. SoWEGloW addresses these complex and multilayered social problems to deepen the understanding of the role of social work in finding solutions. Students and staff from all participating countries are expected to gain valuable new knowledge and learning from this collaboration. 

The project aims to enhance and upgrade teaching, learning, and research through a comprehensive framework incorporating diverse and innovative methodologies and pedagogy. Guided by the SDG and the Inner Development Goals (2021), SoWEGloW seeks to build skills, abilities, and inner resources in students, teachers, and professionals to equip them to address and contribute to a more sustainable global and local society and tackle complex societal issues. 

Key activities planned to achieve these goals include: 

  1. Student and staff mobility
  2. Developing and re-developing educational courses, including modifying existing courses for    COIL format and developing a new English course at the postgraduate level at HVL
  3. Fostering organisational partnerships and internships
  4. Creating structures for mutual knowledge development and sharing between academia and non-academic partners
  5. Developing a sustained mentoring program for students and staff during mobility
  6. Developing methods to strengthen education in other international partnerships
  7. Co-authoring and disseminating research and new knowledge 

SoWEGloW is a long-term project from January 2025 to December 2028. It is financed through UTFORSK 2024 and builds upon connections with previously HK-dir funded ("Into the World!") and NOREC-funded projects ("Children with Disabilities and UN Rights Conventions"). 

The project emphasises the promotion of cross-cultural, transformative, and interdisciplinary social work perspectives, competence, and skills. 

The SoWeGlow project comprises four different work packages, all with clearly defined aims and activities. A short description of each of these work packages can be found in the pull-down menu below.

Work Package 1 : Project planning and implementation

This work package will focus on establishing and consolidating the institutional  conditions and practical arrangements  necessary for the planning and implementation of the overall project. The primary activities of this work package will be:

  1. to finalise agreements between the three project partners for student exchange and the recognition of credit transfers;
  2.  plan both student and staff mobility and begin the exchange between the project partners;
  3. initiate and  complete the evaluation of existing courses for modification;
  4.  develop a course on how to carry out COILs;
  5. plan for and initiate contact building with professionals for mentorship;
  6. initiate and complete the process of assessing and evaluating new partnerships/internships;
  7. initiate and complete the process of deciding the  parameters of the mentoring programme;
  8. complete  the report on project results and evaluation.

Work Package 2: Educational activities

This work package will have responsibility for the strengthening of academic courses, teaching and mobility between the three project partners. The primary activities of this work package will be:

  1. redevelopment of six existing courses at HVL, two at TISS and UWC;
  2. Develop and implement collaborative online international learning courses (COILs);
  3. develop a new course in English at HVL at the postgraduate level;
  4. implement student and staff mobility;
  5. implement guest lecturing across the three institutions;
  6. enable joint supervision of Bachelor’s and Master’s theses across the three institutions;
  7. create a digital learning platform for students.

Work Package 3 : Internships and organizational partnerships

This work package will focus on creating and consolidating the relationship between non-academic partners and the three academic partners through, among other activities, a grounded and comprehensive mentoring programme. The primary activities of this work package will be:

  1. developing a course on enhanced mentoring for students and professionals;
  2. implementing of this  mentoring course;
  3. implementing a mentorship programme at all three project sites ;
  4. strengthening partnerships with municipalities/ NGOs for knowledge sharing and exchange;
  5. knowledge sharing about field action projects;
  6. incorporating best practices from the field into  the educational programmes.

Work Package 4 : Knowledge dissemination and sustainability of impact

This work package will have the responsibility of conducting research on the process and outcomes of the project, knowledge dissemination of the learnings from the project and creating structures for the sustainability of the project outcomes beyond the project period. The primary activities of this work package will be:

  1. creating a baseline and project-end surveys for students and teachers at the three project sites;
  2. analyse the survey results and develop action points based on it;
  3. create a project website;
  4. develop an online and physical interfaces between teachers, students and professionals at the three sites;
  5. organize and implement an international conference at HVL;
  6. publish three peer review based articles for joint publication by all partners.

 

 

 

Travel Letter from SoWEGloW Start-up Meeting in Cape Town

It has been incredibly exciting days, and quite fun to be in meetings at The University of the Western Cape where we had colleagues from three continents gathered to collaborate towards common goals and to launch our project. Here you find a travel letter from the trip (mostly consisting of pictures)