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After South Africa’s battle with the record-breaking drought of 2015, Prof Andries Jordaan from our Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa(DiMTEC) saw room for improvement in dealing with this kind of disaster.
Drought impact
Commercial farmers who are usually net exporters of food crops and communal farmers who own the bulk of the country’s livestock, were all hit hard in 2015. Most of the latter had no resources to spare as the drought progressed. The concern about the drought’s impact on the country’s food production and availability resulted in a joint goal of preventing food scarcity during future droughts.
Prof Jordaan’s visit to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the US, several years ago prepared him to better equip communities in South Africa to deal with drought situations. “I recognised that in spite of the impact DiMTEC has been able to make on disaster preparedness, a gap remained in disaster response in South Africa.”
Sharing knowledge
In August this year Prof Jordaan again visited the NDMC. This time he requested a few key players in South Africa’s agriculture and disaster response communities to join him. With him were Janse Rabie, head of Natural Resources at AgriSA, a nonprofit organisation that functions as an interface between the government and about 28 000 South Africa farmers, and Moses Musiwale Khangale, director of Fire Services for the South African Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
The South African delegation met with and learnt from climatologists, geospatial technologists, and outreach and planning analysts.
Students walk away with Dell laptops, courtesy of Eduloan
2009-10-05
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Owning a laptop is one of the key necessities for any student offering the flexibility and opportunity to work on and submit assignments, complete projects and conduct research timeously and from the comfort of their own home. Four lucky winners will now experience this convenience, thanks to Eduloan and their recently concluded Win-a-Laptop promotion. Students were afforded the opportunity to qualify for the draw if they submitted their loan applications between 13 July and 28 August 2009. The promotion was enhanced by experiential activations on campus and supplemented by weekly spot prize draws. The lucky winner from the University of the Free State was Mr Phillip Diba. He requested a loan for his son Andile Diba, studying Agricultural Management at the UFS. The remaining three lucky winners, drawn on 4 September 2009, are Ms Winnie Ntombomzi Jozi, Mr Gideon Ideon and Mr Thabiso James Nqola. Pictured are the Diba family receiving the laptop from Dr Mariette de Chavonnes Vrugt (Eduloan Operational and Sales Manager in the Free State and North West).
Photo: Supplied |