Biography

Michelle Janse van Rensburg is a senior researcher at the Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) Research Unit in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Pretoria. She is an occupational therapist with a Master’s degree in Public Health (MPH) and a PhD in Family Medicine. Michelle has worked in community settings since the mid-1990s and has been supervising students in academic service-learning since the mid-2000s. Her current work focuses on the well-being and functioning of clients in a substance-use harm-reduction program, as well as previously street-based people living at shelters and housing programs. She also works in the field of community health worker (CHW) education. Michelle is committed to interdisciplinary and collaborative research, and most especially, research that endeavors to authentically present the voices of those who are so often unheard.

Discipline/s

Occupational Therapy, Public Health, and Family Medicine

Research description

A pilot project sharing the narratives of community members involved in various University of Pretoria student-led projects on their daily experiences and realities navigating their lives in vulnerable communities in the city of Tshwane.

The project aims to record the “voices” of community members, specifically but not limited to young people in peri-urban communities, substance users in a harm reduction program, and previously street-based people living in shelters in the City of Tshwane. Participants will tell their stories, with the intention to a) better understand their lives, in order to b) positively influence policy and the implementations thereof, thus c) contributing to appropriate interventions, and d) raise awareness in order to overcome stigma and the resulting discrimination towards, especially, homeless people and people who use/d drugs (PWUD).

ORCID

Research Gate

LinkedIn