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18 December 2018 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo Thabo Kessah
Charlotte Maxeke
Residence students preparing old tyres to use in new playing swings.

The name Charlotte Maxeke is, since time immemorial, associated with ‘hope’ for the downtrodden Black majority. And the name Fulufhelo means ‘hope’ in Tshivenda, the language spoken mainly in Limpopo, her birth province. She was the first black South African woman to earn a degree, a Bachelor of Science from the Wilberforce University in the Unites States of America in 1901.

Khayelisha and Khayelethu also project a very high expectation of ‘hope’. Considering our painful past dominated by the 1913 Land Act, the former literally means ‘our new home’, whilst the latter means ‘our home’.

Fast forward to 2018 at the University of the Free State’s Qwaqwa Campus. These are the names of student residences that brought hope to the needy when they collaborated with Community Engagement to give back to their communities.

“The need to give back was sparked by our encounter with needy students on campus. We then thought that if we could do the little for our fellow students who are part of the No Student Hungry (NSH) campaign, we could actually extend this to those who are even worse off,” said Beyoncé Matsoso, Prime of Charlotte Maxeke and Residence for first year students.

“Taking time out to give toys, play with the kids on the swings we erected for them, helping them with their laundry and giving them fruit and food bought from our own pockets gave us a lot of satisfaction,” said Beyoncé, a final year BA Psychology and Languages student.

Acknowledging the role played by Residence Head, Makeresemese Mokhatla, in the whole exercise was Sikolethu Dodo, Prime of Khayelitsha / Khayelethu Residence.

“Having had a dialogue on how we can make other people’s lives better with our Residence Head Makeresemese Mokhatla and Mme Matsoso from Community Engagement led to this initiative. Some of us will be going out to the world of work soon and this has equipped us with necessary skills like compassion,” said Sikolethu, a final year BAdmin student.

The centres visited were the Itsoseng housing disabled children as well as the Team Spirit Hospice.

News Archive

Odeion School of Music launches new Organ Chair
2015-09-16



Liesbeth Schlumberger-Kurpershoek

The Odeion School of Music (OSM) at the University of the Free State (UFS) has become the first in the country to launch an Organ Chair, named after seasoned international organist Liesbeth Schlumberger-Kurpershoek.

Over the last two decades South African has seen a decline in organ student numbers. The School of Music has taken the initiative by deploying experts and instructors to coach and mentor OSM students, in an effort to increase their chances of excelling in the international music scene.

The Organ Chair is an entity of the International Artistic Mentorship Programme (IAMP), which aims to establish partnerships between successful international musicians and OSM students. It is within this context that the OSM decided to launch the institutionalisation of an Organ Chair in a programme scheduled to take place from 8 -13 September 2015 in the Bloemfontein Campus and in surrounding areas.

Meet the expert

Liesbeth Schlumberger-Kurpershoek is a French-South African organist and pedagogue, who is well versed in the music profession. This bodes well for our university’s music students.  Initially educated by the great Stephanus Zondagh at the University of Pretoria while still a school pupil, Liesbeth’s passion for music has soared to great height since then.

Some of her accolades include winning the prestigious SABC Music Prize in 1985, and the International Organ Competition held in Bordeaux in 1989.

Liesbeth has worked with distinguished organists at the France Conservatoire National de Ruiel-Malmaison, the Conservatoire National de Région, Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon, and is the organist at Reformed Church of Etoile in Paris. In 2010, she was an adjudicator at the Chartres International Organ Competition, one of the most prestigious of its kind in the organ world.

This active recitalist and masterclass pedagogue facilitated classes attended by master students from Cape Town, Stellenbosch, and Potchestroom, and workshops as part of launching the Liesbeth Schlumberger-Kurpershoek OSM Organ Chair.

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