Today knowledge is being considered the most important strategic resource in organisations such as higher institutions of learning. The ability to create and apply knowledge is the most important capability for building and sustaining competitive advantage in organisations. Movement towards resource-based economic theory is called the knowledge-based view of the organisation (Zack, 1999). Knowledge is the key to, developing a learning organisation, even more so as organisations have become increasingly knowledge intensive (ten Have et al. 2003). Successful knowledge management requires four learning competencies to manage the knowledge flow in an organisation. These four learning competencies are:

Prof Babs Surujlal was privileged to be invited by Her Highness Sheikha Bint Nasser Bin to the Fifth International Shafallah Forum in Doha, Qatar. The International Shafallah Forum, conceived by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser as the think tank and action arm of the Shafallah Center for Children with Special Needs, has since 2006 become a global rallying point for disability advocates and policymakers. Attendance at the Forum was by invitation only.

Education is and has always been a terrain of competing political, economic and ideological interests and contestations. While this is the case, new demands by the changing technological environments pose enormous challenges on students and workers to embrace the philosophy continuous learning as an integral part of their daily lives, if we are to succeed. The demand for knowledge workers has never been over-emphasized in a complex, dynamic, globalising world. To succeed and to operate at the edge requires new mindsets, new attitudes, new skills, new values and competences, driven by unyielding commitment, collaboration and moral purpose by all team members if we are to make a difference in our own lives, those of our students and the communities that we serve.

This study was carried out in rural Qwa-Qwa, a region of the Free State in SA. During 2008-2009, Prof WH Oldewage-Theron and Dr AA Egal conducted a situation analysis which showed that poverty and household food insecurity – specifically in terms of good-quality protein sources – as well as poor health and malnutrition (32.4% stunting in boys and 17.8% in girls, marginal iron and zinc deficiency in the children and their caregivers) were the major problems in this community. Furthermore, a large percentage of the caregivers were overweight (25.7%) and obese (34.3%), while 32% reported a history of heart disease, with 25% using chronic medication for diabetes and 15% for hypertension.