African journalism educators are not the easiest constituency to construct into a community. Nothing wrong with them as people! The challenges come from their jobs in general - and the particular conditions of African j-schools (dispersed, under-resourced, divided by language and country, etc).

But a major reason why Rhodes pitched for, and won, the hosting status for the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) over 5-7 July, 2010, is to help overcome these obstacles. We're convinced that all of us across the continent benefit from networking.

So hosting global journalism educators next year is partly a means to an end: the strategic use of this event to build the community of African journalism educators.

Learning from past efforts, and using the theory of social capital, there are quite a few insights into the potential of WJEC - and how African j-schools might use the occasion to build sustainable and productive relationships with each other.

This is the subject matter of a paper I presented at the Wits Journalism "Conference of African Journalism Educators" in October. When it came to doing the powerpoint, I came to greater clarity about what bonding, bridging and linking could mean for African j-schools. Maybe down the line, I'll synthesis the two into a paper for publication.

Meantime, it's incumbent on any African j-educator coming the WJEC to help strategise - and answer the question: how will our embryonic networking emerge stronger after the Congress?