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26 October 2018 Photo Gallo Images
Kovsie Netball star selected to the national team
Kovsie Netball Team player Khanyisa Chawana has been selected to the National Spar Proteas Netball team.
Kovsie Netball Team centre and wing attack player Khanyisa Chawane’s glorious netball career has taken to greater heights after her recent selection into the national netball team.

The 22 year-old student final year Bachelor of Science (Geography and Agrometeorology) student hailed her selection as a new challenge in her sporting career.

Chawana has this week been in  Australia for the Fast 5 netball series where they will be playing against Jamaica, Malawi, Australia, New Zealand and England on this coming Sunday and Monday.
A Fast 5 is a quick-paced netball game where contesting nations will select five players per side.

Testing her prowess with the best

Chawana has so far been capped three times in the Spar Proteas national netball team; those were for the Quad Series matches which the South African Spar Proteas played against Australia, New Zealand and England. The games were held in Australia last month.

“I was nervous at first, but I wanted to go out there and wanted to prove myself that I worked hard to be here,” she said adding that their opponents were playing a different game with speed and high intensity.

“After those games, I felt like I needed to prepare myself more so that I could handle the intensity as I was playing with ladies who have been capped many times and were more experienced,” she said.

Kovsie netball coach “inspired me to be the best”

Asked who has been a source of her inspiration in her netball career, Chawana spared no moment in attributing her rise to Kovsie Netball Team coach Burta De Kock.

She explained that from her late high school days when she was playing at provincial games in Limpopo, De Kock scouted her abilities and has been keeping an eye on her since then.

“When I was doing Grade 12, she approached me and said, ‘One day you will play in the National Netball Team.”

“When I first got the news of my selection, I exclaimed and said; Wow! Words do really come true, my coach Burta saw in me what I could not see and she prepared me for the best.”

She described her coach as a kind of a manager who individually nurtures the abilities of each and every single player for the best, “I am so grateful to her.”

Chawana blew off family blows

Last year, Chawana was dealt a devastating blow when her family home in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga was razed to the ground by fire, thereby losing all her possessions. Her father, Russel, also had to spend three weeks in the intensive care unit of a local hospital for smoke inhalation treatment.

“Having gone through all this, but for me, nothing picks me up more than a prayer. I felt that all this might have happened for a reason and it always aspired that something better will come up,” she said.

During the Varsity Cup National Netball Tournament finals played which the Kovsie Netball Team played against the University of Pretoria here, Chawana came out as the best player in the Premier League, National Championship and the Varsity Netball in the same year.

News Archive

UFS can lead SA in race relations - Ramphele
2010-08-06


 

 
Pictured are: Dr Boesak and Dr Ramphele
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

The University of the Free State (UFS) could well be a perfect model of excellence in race relations that the whole of South Africa could emulate.

This was said by Dr Mamphela Ramphele, the first African to be a Managing Director of the World Bank, during the Anti-Racism Network in Higher Education (ARNHE) Colloquium held at the UFS recently.

“Healing circles need to be constructed on this campus to address issues raised by the Reitz incident,” she said.

“You might yet be the pioneer of what needs to happen on a nation-wide level.

“Can we confidently commit today to go on this quest for a true humanity and walk together as fellow citizens and strive for a more human face for our society? That is our challenge. That is what the UFS is called to give leadership to.”

“It is this human face which has the power to liberate us from the body of death and strengthen us in our struggle for meaningful life together in South Africa,” added one of the main speakers, Dr Allan Boesak, a cleric and former anti-apartheid activist.

However, said Dr Ramphele, this could only be achieved if all South Africans, black and white, abandoned the fear for each other that was hindering, if not stalling, progress in this regard.

“Fear of each other is the most important impediment to the sustainability of our journey into a society united in our diversity,” she said.

“People in this country are afraid to stand up and be counted, including many vice-chancellors and clerics. They are afraid of being seen to be difficult, and that is a major problem. Fear is the most destructive emotion that you can have because it makes you really incompetent and unable to respond to challenges.”

She said the biggest impediment, though, to ending racism was denial. “White people deny vehemently that they are or have ever been racist,” she said.

“We need to go through a process of acknowledging our wounds and scars from our racist past and present missteps in public policy.”

“Instead of saying they are sorry, those who are conscious of their whiteness should rather say what they are sorry for,” said another main speaker, Prof. Dennis Francis, the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the UFS.

On the other hand, according to Dr Boesak, blacks were and still are, to a large extent, also to blame for their own ongoing oppression. “The key here was the acknowledgement of our sheepish timidity, our complicity,” he said.

The Chairperson of ARNHE, Prof. Norman Duncan, had this to say: “If we are to confront and eradicate racism in higher education institutions, we should not do so to create comfort zones for ourselves.”

The theme of this ARNHE Colloquium was Black consciousness and those conscious of their whiteness. It was presented by the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice at the UFS.

Media Release:
Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za 
6 August 2010


 

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