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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.
Well-known copy writer trains UFS students
2006-10-16
Ms Claire Harrison, well-known copy writer and lecturer from the VEGA advertising school in Johannesburg, presented a workshop on copy writing on the Main Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein. She was invited by the Department of Communication and Information Studies. The workshop forms part of a greater partnership between this department and the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French to improve skills in the course. Other partners include the Department of Drama and Theatre Art, the graphic design school DCM and the national radio stations RSG and SAFM. The workshop also serves as preparation for the advertisements the students must make for the Society of Physically Disabled and Kidz Care Trust.
Here are, from the left, front: Ms Danielle McLachlan (third-year student in Integrated Marketing Communication), Ms Harrison, Dr Angelique van Niekerk (presenter of the course in advertising copy writing and lecturer at the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French) and Ms Dalmé Mulder (lecturer at the Department of Communication and Information Studies); back: Mr Napo Moliana (third-year student in Integrated Marketing Communication).