The CCS Community Scholarship Initiative involves participation from members of civil society organisations / movements in Durban allowing for exchanges between academics and local civil society organisations. Among these organisations and campaigns are the Right2Know Campaign, the Treatment Action Campaign, Festival of Powerful Ideas and the Africa Solidarity Network. This initiative also ensures that theoretical understandings of the concept ‘civil society’ are underpinned by practical experiences and likewise that civil society organisations linked with CCS have an opportunity to participate in evolving formulations of theories on civil society and are capacitated to utilise them in their own environments. The initiative includes various courses run for Community Scholars based at the Centre focused on theories of civil society and contemporary debates on social movements and ‘NGOization’ as well as courses on research methods both qualitative and quantitative

The CCS Community Scholarship programme supports the notion of Antonio Gramsci’s ‘organic intellectual’. It recognizes that the organic intellectual plays a critical role in both maintaining but also contesting hegemony. The ‘organic intellectual’ questions the hegemon’s system of beliefs and provides an alternative value system on which to base the future development of society. The programme thus provides spaces and platforms for locally based activists to develop their praxis, contribute to knowledge production and build solidarity in local as well as national struggles. In 2018 / 2019 the programme will be structured along four specific tracks (formulated by activists themselves). These tracks are: writing / knowledge production:  CSO / campaign / community engagement; training / skills / capacity and; building solidarity / networking.