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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

Summer programme a first outside Austria
2012-12-06

 

Mr Derek Hanekom, Minister of Science and Technology
Foto: Johan Roux
05 Desember 2012

People often fight about their differences, like skin colour, religion and more. “These differences are minute. We must celebrate our common ancestry and commit ourselves to a common destiny. Your work can make a difference.” This is according to Mr Derek Hanekom, Minister of Science and Technology.

He opened the Southern African Young Scientists Summer Programme (SA-YSSP) at the Bloemfontein Campus on Sunday 2 December 2012. The UFS is the first institution outside Austria to host the Summer Programme. A total of 19 young researchers from 17 countries will be hosted by the UFS until 28 February 2013. Researchers in the programme are, among others, from South Africa, Egypt, China, Italy, Sweden, Iran, Hungary, India, the USA and Indonesia.

The programme will form part of an annual three-month education, academic training and research capacity-building programme jointly organised by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), based in Austria, the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). IIASA is an international research organisation that conducts policy-oriented scientific research in the three global problem areas of energy and climate change, food and water and poverty and equity. South Africa’s engagements with IIASA, specifically with regard to the SA-YSSP, relate primarily to the DST’s Ten-Year Innovation Plan.

Mr Hanekom spoke about the impact the growing global population, which is expected to grow from 7 billion in 2012 to 9 billion in 2050, has on natural resources. “We use purified water to flush our toilets while other people do not have clean drinking water. We cannot carry on like this. Somewhere it must stop, if we do not want to be responsible for the 6th great extinction. We must know how our systems impact on each other.

“We can do things differently and better and should endeavour that other people enjoy luxuries we take for granted,” he said.

He urged the researchers to believe that they can make a difference, share knowledge and translate the knowledge into plans.

Prof. Dr Pavel Kabat, Director/CEO of IIASA, said the summer programme was presented outside Austria for the first time, with plans to expand to Brazil and China in future. Twenty countries are represented on the IIASA board, with more than 3 000 researchers associated with the organisation.

IIASA was launched in 1972 in the days of the Cold War as a “science bridge” between the West and the Soviet Union. It served as a “think tank” for various issues that needed to be resolved. Its mission was reconfirmed after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

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