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26 January 2018

RAG has a new
name and format:
ACT—
Active, Civic, Teaching.

The University of the Free State (UFS) is ready to kick off the new year with a bang. Get ready to celebrate the start of university with a cause. RAG, as you know it, has a new name and format: ACT—Active, Civic, Teaching.

You get further if you pull in the same direction, rather than various good-intentioned movements on different routes. In a collective effort, four exciting programmes will take flight, which are listed below:



  1. Schools project for first-year students: mentored by senior students, groups of first-year students will be assigned to, and participate in local school projects. Students will learn to solve problems and work together in small groups as they collaborate on a specific community project involving primary or secondary schools in the Mangaung region.

  2. Community gardens: This project will help individual student communities to begin and maintain their own vegetable gardens in order to address food insecurity within their own environment.

  3. Eco-vehicle project for senior students: The aim of the eco-vehicle project is to create an interdisciplinary experience. Undergraduate senior students from a Student Life College (SLC) can work together to build an eco-vehicle from waste material. The track day, along with creative pit stops, will take place on 16 February 2018, preceding the Community celebration of 17 February 2018.

  4. Community celebration: To foster good relationships between the UFS and the community, we aim to host an annual celebration that will be open to the broader Mangaung community. The celebrations will kick off on the morning of 17 February 2018 with a business relay and a showcase of the eco-vehicles. The festive day will conclude with an evening music concert.

Keep checking the UFS website for updates about more ACT activities during the month of February.

News Archive

Short course in population, environment and development draws participants from across the world
2013-09-04

Participants at this year’s short course in the Population, Environment and Development (PED) nexus.
4 September 2013

In 2006 the university, in collaboration with several national and international partners, such as the Department of Social Development (DSD), Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD): Southern and Eastern Africa, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and South African National Parks (SANParks, particularly Golden Gate Highlands National Park), launched a short course in the Population, Environment and Development (PED) nexus. Since 2006 a total of ten courses were presented and more than 300 mid-career managers, senior officials and NGO volunteers from across the world received training. The most recent course included participants from Vietnam, China, Tunisia, Gambia, Zimbabwe, Mexico and Uganda.

Colleagues from several academic departments and centres at the UFS – Sociology, Environmental Management, Development Studies and Disaster Management, in collaboration with the DSD and LEAD – gave theoretical inputs during the course, while colleagues from SANParks were primarily responsible for the facilitation of the practical visit on site. The PED nexus training programme has received international recognition as a best practice example of successful initiatives of this kind.

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