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12 September 2018

What can or should higher education contribute to transformation and development by advancing the human well-being and agency of all students? How would our universities need to change to truly foster human development? 

These are the common questions cutting across the papers which will be presented at the International colloquium on ‘Researching well-being, agency and structural inequalities: comparative perspectives’. The University of the Free State’s (UFS) South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in higher education and human development research programme led by Prof Melanie Walker will host the colloquium on 19 September 2018 at the Bloemfontein Campus.

The colloquium presents critical scholarship on development and also serves to celebrate the second five-year term of the SARChI Chair. The event has been structured to enable opportunities for early career researchers from the UFS to present their work alongside that of experienced scholars from the UK, US and South Africa, working on human development, development ethics and on education.
 
Date: Wednesday 19 September 2018
Time: 09:00-17:00
Venue: Chancellor’s Room, Centenary Complex, Bloemfontein Campus

Enquiries: Contact Elize Rall at rall.elize@gmail.com or on 076 792 9999 and CC Lucretia Smith at SmithL3@ufs.ac.za or dial 051 401 9856.

Click on the attached documents for the invitation and programme

News Archive

An article, co-authored by Kovsies’ own Miss World, Rolene Strauss, was published recently in a medical journal
2015-02-23

Rolene Strauss

The article, which deals with research on the incidence of multiple losses by children, was published in South African Family Practice.

The study was part of the third-year research project for medical students in our Faculty of Health Sciences. Rolene worked with fellow students, Leischen Branders, Mirandie Claassen, Darienne Saaiman, and Andrea van Staden. Prof Gina Joubert from the UFS’s Department of Biostatistics and Prof Hanneke Brits were the module and study leaders.

In this study, a number of cases involving Bloemfontein children experiencing loss, as well as their reaction to it, were examined.

They divided the incidents into categories in order to address the broad definition of ‘losses’.

Approximately 69% of the children in the study have experienced three or more instances of loss in their lives. About 29% of the children have experienced loss in the category Personal Loss (assault, chronic and terminal illness, amputation, malnutrition, disability, abortion, and miscarriage). The greatest number of losses occurred in the category Interpersonal Loss (87%). This group of children has had to deal with the death of one or more parents/caregivers, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, divorce, homelessness, and instability. In the category, Environmental Loss, xenophobia, unsafe living conditions, inadequate support, poverty, and unemployment were looked at. A total of 82% of the children in the group have experienced losses.

Prof Hanneke Brits, study leader of the group, says the extent of multiple losses by children is a topic that hasn’t been investigated widely.

“The study shows that children should receive special attention in order to help them process the trauma. Supportive care and inter-professional services play a major role in this regard.”

 

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