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04 April 2018 Photo SASCOC
Large Kovsie contingent at Commonwealth Games
Elmé de Villiers (badminton) is one of several former or current Kovsies who will be in action at the Commonwealth Games between 5 and 15 April.
The University of the Free State (UFS) will be well represented at the Commonwealth Games with 11 current or former Kovsies participating in Australia.

The Games take place from 5 to 15 April on the Gold Coast. For many of the sporting codes, this is the second biggest sporting stage after the Olympic Games.

The eight athletes are Ts’epang Sello, Juanelie Meijer and Karla Pretorius (current students) and former Kovsies Juanré Jenkinson, Elmé de Villiers, Nicole Walraven, Maryka Holtzhausen and Philip Snyman. 

In addition, three members of the management team, Neil Powell, Kate Roberts and Jan Wahl, all previously studied at the UFS. 

Holtzhausen and Powell at their third Games 
Sello will be competing in the 800m in the colours of Lesotho, her country of birth. 

Pretorius is the vice-captain of the netball team and Holtzhausen was the former captain before her serious injury in 2016. Pretorius is doing a postgraduate in Dietetics and Holtzhausen is a contract worker at Kovsiesport. She will be competing at her third Games. 
De Villiers is a member of the South African badminton team and Walraven is with the Protea hockey team. Snyman will captain the rugby team.

Meijer (long jump) and Jenkinson (shot put) will battle in the para-athletic programme.

Powell will coach the Blitzbokke who are the defending champions from 2014. It will be his second Games in charge. He also won the bronze medal as a player in 2010. 

Roberts is the manager of the triathlon team and a participant in 2006. Wahl will act as the manager of the para-athletics team.

News Archive

Ecofeminism a possibe solution to impending famine
2016-05-12

Description: Ecofeminism Tags: Ecofeminism

Dr Inge Konik (right) is pictured with her postdoctoral supervisor, Prof Bert Olivier, Senior Research Professor at the Department of Philosophy.
Photo: Valentino Ndaba

In view of the environmental and social problems faced in South Africa today, researchers such as Dr Inge Konik are hard at work mapping these issues and seeking long-term solutions. Dr Konik,  a lecturer in the Department of Journalism, Media and Philosophy at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) shared her views in a presentation on 6 May 2016. She spoke about revaluing indigenous ways of life and subsistence-focused lifeways, linking this to materialist ecological feminism, or ecofeminism for short.

Dr. Konik’s presentation, hosted by the Department of Philosophy at the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS), was entitled: “Transversal reflections on ecological feminism and ubuntu.” The research underpinning the presentation derived from Dr Konik’s doctoral thesis which was supervised by Ariel Salleh (University of Sydney) and Andrea Hurst (NMMU).

Dr Konik’s research suggests that ecofeminism - which is a convergence between environmentalism and feminism - may hold the answers to the question of how we may work against environmental and social injustices. She also proposed that society look back toward subsistence communities of the past, and those currently being marginalized in our industrial societies, and linked the values evidenced in the practices of these communities to the African philosophty of ubuntu. In order to solve  complex contemporary challenges Dr Konik suggests that we combine these seemingly disparate theoretical frames - ubuntu and ecofeminism - by applying a transversal approach, which involves openness to dialogue  between traditions.

“My focus was on ecological feminism and critical theory and very specifically on South Africa, given the challeges South Africa faces - the environmental and social challenges and what kind of frameworks would be helpful,” said Dr Konik, who will officially become a postdoctoral research fellow at the department as of July 2016.

Prof Pieter Duvenage, Head of the Departement, stated that compelling research outputs are anticipated from Dr Konik as a fellow.

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