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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.
Theology Faculty boosts NSH campaign
2012-06-22
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Prof. Francois Tolmie and René Pelser.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs |
The Faculty of Theology has handed over a cheque of R4 300 to the No Student Hungry campaign. Prof. Francois Tolmie, the Dean of the faculty, says it is important to him and his staff that students do not go hungry. The amount is made up of donations from staff in the faculty.
René Pelser from Student Affairs, who handed over the cheque, says the university’s aim is to collect 200 000 “bites” this year (a “bite” equals one meal for a student). Others on campus who have contributed are Veritas and Accommodation Services. Kovsie Culture is to launch projects to collect funds.
Staff, faculties and departments can contact René on x9087 if they want to contribute to the NSH campaign.