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11 April 2018 Photo Oteng Mpete
UFS medical students improve life for kids at Lethabo Daycare Centre
UFS medical students donate furniture for the Lethabo Daycare Centre at the UFS Bloemfontein Campus. From left front are: Anda Gxolo, Tshepo Ntoule, the daycare centre principal Selina Keta, Andrea Bailey and Yenziwe Mbambo. Back from left: Ilyas Moola Malibongwe Jiyane, and Yusuf Moola Umar Kajee
There is strong evidence to suggest that improving a caregiver’s knowledge has an impact on a child’s development. This is according to the Human Sciences Research Council. With this in mind, medical students from the University of the Free State (UFS) decided to work with a children’s daycare centre in order to improve the quality of care.

The students, from the School of Clinical Medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences, were encouraged to assist NGOs in and around Bloemfontein, as part of their community service curriculum. They needed to look at hygiene, sanitation, cognitive development, physical development, vaccinations, prevention of diseases, nutritional status, socio-economic status, as well as the children’s environment. Moreover, they needed to highlight how a deficit from one factor could affect the other factors.
 
Through a meta-analysis study of 67 interventions regarding the above points, the students found most interventions to be generally effective in improving the children’s lives in one way or the other.
 
Selina Keta, the principal of Lethabo Daycare Centre in Mangaung, provided a list of problems she faced and ways in which the students could help to improve the conditions at the centre. She noted that the kitchen needed fixing because it did not meet the specifications required by the Department of Education for registration. The main issue was that the gas bottle for the stove was inside the kitchen and had to be moved out. The kitchen also needed steel counters, a sink, and running water. The students moved the gas bottle outside, and provided a fire extinguisher and first aid kit. They also provided a teacher at the centre with first-aid training from St John in Bloemfontein.

The students made sure there was running water and donated cupboards and microwaves to the centre. They also helped build two new classrooms, and there are plans for a third one to cater for different age groups.
As a final gift, the students painted the playground walls and arranged for the teachers to attend skills development workshops. They are also building a toy library for the centre.

News Archive

UFS withdraws interdict against SASCO and ANCYL
2003-11-25

The Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State, Prof Frederick Fourie, announced today that a court order against the South African Students Congress (SASCO) and the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) had been withdrawn.

The withdrawal of the court order follows after a written statement by SASCO and the ANCYL in which they “unconditionally withdraw or retract statements threatening to render the institution ungovernable” and give their “commitment not to proceed with our threats to establish our own democratic SRC and occupy the current SRC offices”.

The UFS management obtained the court order in October after SASCO and the ANCYL refused to accept the outcome of the recent student referendum and SRC elections and threatened to disrupt the campus.

Prof Fourie also welcomed the undertaking by SASCO and the ANCYL to act in accordance with the prescribed procedures to resolve any grievance that the organisations may have, saying the UFS management remains committed to a constructive dialogue with all student organisations to manage a campus of diversity, tolerance and non-racialism.

In September students voted in a referendum to test support for a system of proportional representation (PR) for the SRC. A vast majority of students voted against the PR system, a system favoured by SASCO and the ANCYL..

Following allegations of fraud in the referendum, the UFS management asked the auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers to conduct an independent audit of the ballot papers.

The auditors found that a total of 180 ballot papers out of 3513 – only 5.12% - of the votes cast - appeared to have been altered by means of erasing and then changing the student number.

According to the auditors, with all potentially altered and suspicious ballot papers excluded, a huge majority of 60,8% of students voted against the proportional representation system.

A few days after the referendum, the actual SRC election was held. However, at no stage were there any complaints from any organization about the integrity of the SRC election itself.

Despite this and the findings of the auditors, SASCO and the ANCYL refused to accept the outcome.

Law student Quintin du Plessis was elected SRC president. He welcomed the stance taken by SASCO and the ANCYL to pursue their objectives through the existing structures and said the SRC was always willing to engage with these organisations on issues of student governance.

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