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26 October 2018
Dr Annamarie van Jaarsveld believes occupational therapy is important
Dr Annamarie van Jaarsveld believes occupational therapy is important for personal well-being.
On 27 October the profession of occupational therapy is promoted and celebrated internationally. The theme for this year is “Celebrating our global community.” Due to the theme of this year occupational therapists form all over the globe will be able to join in the World Federation for Occupational Therapy Virtual Exchange webinars.
 
Occupational therapy promotes health and well-being through occupation. The overarching goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life that is meaningful to them. Occupational therapists work with people and communities in an effort to enable people of all ages to live life to its fullest by helping them maintain and/or promote health, and prevent (or live better with) injury, illness, or disability. 

Common occupational therapy interventions include helping children with disabilities to participate fully in school and social situations, helping people recovering from injury to regain skills, and providing supports for older adults experiencing physical and cognitive changes. Occupational and social justice along with occupational deprivation are core within the profession as it relates to oppression or restrictions to participation in occupation impacting on well-being and quality of life. 

Taking the lead in Sensory Integration research

Dr Annamarie van Jaarsveld is a lecturer in the Department of Occupational Therapy, and she is at the forefront of research in sensory integration, a specialist field within occupational therapy. Apart from completing her PhD on the curriculum design of a South African professional master’s degree qualification in sensory integration, she is also heading the South African leg of a large international study in collaboration with sensory integration experts all over the world.

Dr Van Jaarsveld explains: “The Evaluation of Ayres Sensory Integration (EASI) is a new test which aims to be a first of its kind in the field of sensory integration and occupational therapy. It will be inexpensive, electronically accessible and practical, and standardised on an international population which includes a South African sample. This will make the test accessible and useful for therapists in South Africa to be able to assess sensory integration related function of all South African children in a valid and reliable manner.” 

In addition to being the South African lead on the international EASI standardisation study, Annamarie was selected as the chairperson of the Board of Council Meetings of the International Council for Education in Ayres Sensory Integration (ICEASI). She is also the International Liaison on the board of the South African Institute for Sensory Integration. 

Annamarie’s passion for sensory integration and the application of a highly researched and specialised subfield where the expertise and guidance are provided by a first-world country is not only evident in her research, but also in various community projects that she is involved in. One such a project, Back to Urth Playgrounds, aims to make sensory integration relevant to the needs of South African children and their families struggling with sensory integration issues within the realities of diverse contexts. Through the designing of sustainable playgrounds based on sensory integration theory, building the playgrounds in collaboration with the community and other stakeholders, and equipping educators and caregivers with knowledge on how to encourage children to use the playgrounds, Annamarie has contributed to making the potential of sensory integration-based intervention accessible to the most under-resourced of areas. 

With the 27th of October being International Occupational Therapy Day, Annamarie says: “Sensory integration is not only the best researched field within occupational therapy, providing more and more best practice evidence through rigorous research, it is also becoming more available to children and families from all walks of life – indeed exciting times ahead for this field of practice and it remains a privilege to be involved in it”.  

News Archive

Renowned writer for Africa Day
2012-05-31

 

Attending the lecture were, from left: Dr Choice Makhetha, Vice-Rector: External Relations; Prof Kwandiwe Kondlo, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies;Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong'o; Prof Lucius Botes, Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities, and Prof Andre Keet, Director of the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice..
Photo: Stephen Collett
25 May 2012

Photo Gallery

Lecture: THE BLACKNESS OF BLACK: Africa in the World Today

Audio of the lecture

Profile of Professor Ngugi wa Thiong'o (pdf format)

“Flowers are all different, yet no flower claims to be more of a flower than the other.” With these words Kenyan writer and one of the continent's most celebrated authors, Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, delivered the tenth annual Africa Day Memorial lecture on 25 May 2012 in the University of the Free State's (UFS) Odeion Theatre on the Bloemfontein Campus. The lecture was hosted by the Centre for Africa Studies.

Long before Prof. wa Thiong’o was led inside the venue by a praise singer, chairs were filled and people were shown to an adjoining room to follow the lecture. Others, some on the university's Qwaqwa Campus, followed via live streaming.

In his speech titled the Blackness of Black: Africa in the world today, Prof. wa Thiong’o looked at the standing of Africa in the world today. He highlighted the plight of those of African descent who are judged “based on a negative profile of blackness”.

Prof. wa Thiong’o recalled a humiliating experience at a hotel in San Francisco in the United States, where a staff member questioned him being a guest of the hotel. He shared a similar experience in New Jersey, where he and his wife were thought to be recipients of welfare cheques. He said this was far deeper than overt racism.

“The certainty is based on a negative profile of blackness taken so much for granted as normal that it no longer creates a doubt.”

Prof. wa Thiong’o said the self certainty that black is negative is not confined to white perception of black only.

“The biggest sin, then, is not that certain groups of white people, and even the West as a whole, may have a negative view of blackness embedded in their psyche, the real sin is that the black bourgeoisie in Africa and the world should contribute to that negativity and even embrace it by becoming participants or shareholders in a multibillion industry built on black negativity.”

“Africa has to review the roots of the current imbalance of power: it started in the colonisation of the body. Africa has to reclaim the black body with all its blackness as the starting point in our plunge into and negotiations with the world.”

Prof. wa Thiong’o concluded by saying that Africa must rediscover and reconnect with Kwame Nkrumah’s dreams of a politically and economically united Africa.

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