OSUN Project Releases Film on “Resilient Roots: Rural Sustainability in South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, and Lebanon”

“Resilient Roots: Rural Sustainability in South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, and Lebanon,” is a film produced as part of the Collaborating for Rural Sustainability (CORUSUS) Project, an initiative supported by OSUN. The film features interviews with a number of project partners and commentary from farmers across study sites on how they perceive challenges to rural sustainability.

Over three years, the CORUSUS project has supported cross-institutional teaching, learning, and research collaborations tasked with assessing sustainability among rural communities in South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, and Lebanon.

Led by Brandon P. Anthony from the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy at Central European University (CEU) from 2022-2024, CORUSUS has allowed faculty and students at CEU in Austria, University of Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, American University of Central Asia (AUCA) in Kyrgyzstan, and American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon, to share knowledge and experience in the pursuit of research goals.

Rural environments are complex social-ecological systems and are explicitly linked with several UN Sustainable Development Goals addressing poverty, food security, and sustainable natural resource use. The CORUSUS project strengthened teaching, learning and research by cultivating cooperation to address the sustainability of rural livelihoods in South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, and Lebanon, while bolstering the sharing of knowledge and experience between faculty and students at partner institutions.

The project has also amplified the voices of academics and rural residents from the Global South, expanding discussions on sustainable development. By conducting more than 400 surveys and organizing workshops and group discussions, key rural sustainability challenges across diverse regions were identified and addressed.

“Collaborating for Rural Sustainability has helped us in building resilience, fostering growth, and paving the way for a more sustainable tomorrow,” says Brandon Anthony.

Watch the film here

Post Date: 06-25-2025