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01 January 2018

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. 

News Archive

UFS presents unique rally
2006-05-11

On Friday 9 June 2006 the University of the Free State (UFS) will present the second Amazing Race Rally in Bloemfontein. 

The rally is presented in aid of children and babies with serious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health in the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences.  These children are in need of intensive care, and suffer from cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and conditions, endocrinological diseases or gastro-enterological conditions.

By raising the necessary funds, equipment can be acquired to meet the unique healthcare needs of these children and babies and it will also enable the UFS to maintain the high standards of education, training and research in this field.

Last year about 12 corporate teams from among others Vodacom, Medi-Clinic, Eskom, Mimosa Mall and Nedbank and four teams from the UFS competed in the rally.  The Medi-Clinic team was the winner.

This year the teams will again follow a specific route with various check points by car.  Here they will have to complete activities or solve clues before receiving their clue to the next checkpoint.  The teams will be travelling with cars branded with the logo of the company they represent.

Companies and institutions in Bloemfontein can enter in the rally by means of sponsoring a check point, entering a team of two persons or sponsoring some aspects of the day. 

The rally will give participants an opportunity to test their knowledge of the city, as well as their time management skills, communication skills, team work and even their relationships! 

The programme will start at 12:00 on the UFS Main Campus and the first team to complete this task is the winner of Bloemfontein’s second Amazing Rainbow Rally.

Extensive publicity of the event on OFM in the weeks running up to the day will ensure that participants are easily recognised and will create a measure of excitement.

Enquiries about the rally can be directed to Ms Adéle van Aswegen at (051) 401-3535 or Ms Ilse Olivier at (051) 401-2415.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:  (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
11 May 2006

 

 

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