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11 April 2018 Photo Charl Henning
Nicro approach UFS Drama for crime-prevention play
Dion and Charl with the school group during rehearsals at the Scaena Theatre on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus.
Theatre is one of the many ways used by the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Reintegration of Offenders (Nicro) as medium to educate our youth. Nicro approached Prof Nico Luwes, Head of the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of the Free State (UFS), to assist with a crime-prevention play project.  

Prof Luwes then knocked on the door of Drama lecturer, Dion van Niekerk, and master’s student Charl Henning.

Nicro is a non-profitable organisation with the purpose to create awareness among learners about different societal issues such as crime, substance abuse, etc. 

“They have this leadership programme within the organisation for youth who have not fallen into a life of crime. They are known as the ambassadors,” said Van Niekerk. 

 Play address societal issues 
“We did two plays; the text of the plays were existing text written by Prof Luwes. The text wasn’t about crime prevention, but rather about HIV and other societal issues; however, we improvised by making use of the children to guide us.”  

They are the ones who are confronted with these issues on a daily basis. “You see their leadership quality grow and how they can work together in a team. It was also a way to build their self-confidence in a fun way,” said Henning. Not only did it improve their self-confidence, but it also improved their interaction with learners from other schools. 

The play will be performed at schools in Bloemfontein.  The project is conducted at four local schools, namely Kopanong Secondary School, Moemedi Secondary School, Hodisa Technical School, and Louis Botha Technical High School.

News Archive

Final lecture in Darwin series presented at the UFS
2010-02-23

At the lecture were, from the left: Prof. Terence McCarthy, Prof. Jo van As, Chairperson of the Darwin 200 Committee and Head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the UFS, Prof. Bruce Rubidge, Elsabe Brits, journalist at Die Burger and Esther van der Westhuizen, presenter on Groen.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs


The University of the Free State (UFS), in collaboration with the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) and The National Museum in Bloemfontein recently hosted the final lecture on the Charles Darwin lecture series entitled “The story of life and survival”.

The lecture was presented by Prof. Bruce Rubidge, the Director of the Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research at Wits University and Prof. Terence McCarthy, a Professor of Mineral Geochemistry at Wits and Head of the Department of Geology. Proff. Rubidge and McCarthy are co-authors of the book The Story of Life on Earth.

Their lecture with the topic “Trends in evolution and their bearing on the future of humankind” dealt with the future of evolution. According to Prof. Rubidge, ninety-nine percent of the species that have ever lived are extinct. “We are living in a time of mass extinction. Fifty thousand species become extinct annually,” he said.

Prof. McCarthy discussed many factors that can result in mankind’s extinction today. The impact of climate change, big volcanic eruptions, a comet or asteroid hitting earth, tsunamis and the collapsing of sea islands are some of the factors Prof. McCarthy believes could cause great catastrophe’s on earth.

“We live on the brink of this all the time,” he said.

Prof. McCarthy also believes that we can avoid these catastrophes. By allowing only one child per family we can shrink the global population with 30% per generation. This is doable in a short time span,” he said.

Other ideas he had on saving mankind from getting extinct is to create extensive ecological reserves on land but especially in the ocean, to decentralise everything, to change to renewable energy, to recycle resources and to be vigilant in doing this.

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