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27 August 2018
Photo Barend Nagel
Arina Engelbrecht’s vision is for all Kovsies to lead holistically healthy lives.
How do you start living a healthy lifestyle? Arina Engelbrecht, a wellness specialist in the Employee Wellness Division at the University of the Free State (UFS) says it only takes a few changes. Her passion is to motivate people to live a balanced life.
Being active enables a person to live life to the full. “Aim to exercise 150 minutes a week, which equates to 30 minutes five times a week in order to experience health benefits like prevention of lifestyle illnesses, better sleeping patterns, decreasing stress or anxiety and feeling more energetic,” says Engelbrecht.
Some of the initiatives Engelbrecht and her team drive are the Healthy Lifestyle Challenge, Park Runs in Bloemfontein, and the Healthy4Life Pedometer Challenge, which encourage staff members to become more physically active. “Everything we do, think or feel is influenced by what we eat! It is therefore important to eat a balanced diet. Healthy food = quality fuel = good health = sustained energy = peak performance,” she explains.
Pedometer Challenge
In the space of eight weeks 240 staff members from all campuses walked 54 000km as part of the Pedometer Challenge. Engelbrecht and her team mobilised 53 active teams from all three campuses. Three of these teams emerged as the winners as they exceeded the target of 1 300km which is the equivalent of walking to Cape Town. In September 2018 the Challenge is going national as the North-West University competes against UFS.
Celebrating women
This Women’s Month Engelbrecht’s message to women of Kovsies is: “We must start embracing who we are and start believing in ourselves, whether it is in the workplace, in business, or at home.”
Regional winner designing her way to Architectural Student of the Year Award
2016-03-09
Musa Shangase, Corobrik Commercial and Marketing Director, and Nilene van Niekerk. |
For 29 years, Corobrik has been celebrating the most outstanding architectural talent in South Africa. This year, Nilene van Niekerk – a master’s graduate of the University of the Free State (UFS) Department of Architecture – features as one of the regional winners.
Deciding on a dissertation topic, Nilene contemplated how she could use architecture as a tool to address a non-architectural contemporary problem specific to post-apartheid democratic South Africa. Her answer was born from her passion for freedom of speech. “Freedom of speech and the intimidation of journalists by the controversial Secrecy Bill were at the forefront these past few years,” Nilene says. “Although freedom of expression are generally protected practices in South Africa’s constitution, the persistent role of the government to protect state information is a substantial threat to citizens’ constitutional right of freedom of expression.”
This resulted in Nilene’s dissertation topic, Freedom of Expression Forum. This architectural concept envision a building, in the vicinity of Constitutional Hill, that symbolises protest against the Secrecy Bill. The building will provide “protection to journalists and become a pivotal point where classified information can be sent and archived. It will also establish a public space that encourages communication – all in the name of fostering the right of freedom of expression within this human rights precinct,” Nilene says.
Nilene will now go on to compete for the national title at the Corobrik Student Architect of the Year Awards in Johannesburg in May 2016.
“The project also rethinks the idea of sustainability as it focuses on how to contribute to a sustainable political future in South Africa. I believe that we as architects, especially in a third world country, should think beyond the normative boundaries of sustainability,” Nilene says.