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Four universities to walk 200 000 km in ten weeks

12 April 2019 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Charl Devenish

“May the best team win the 2019 BestMed Pedometer Challenge!” said LJ van Zyl, Pedometer Challenge ambassador.

Participants in the 2019 BestMed Pedometer Challenge will start improving their health step by step after the University of the Free State (UFS) challenged the Stellenbosch University, Central University of Technology, and North-West University (NWU) to an eight-week walking competition.

South African 400-metre hurdles record-holder and the Pedometer Challenge ambassador, LJ van Zyl, embraced the initiative as an alternative method to achieve fitness. “I am so tired of running and this is great way to stay fit,” he said during the official launch on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus on 5 April 2019.

Inter-institutional fight for fitness

Last year, the UFS Division for Organisational Development and Employment Wellness in the Department of Human Resources led a UFS-only challenge that saw 60 teams of staff members log a total of 54 606 km in eight weeks. The division then challenged the NWU.

Together, the NWU and UFS walked 132 000 km. This year, the UFS is taking it one step further by challenging two more institutions.

Leading the way

“We aim to get South Africa active – starting with the UFS – by embracing fitness and health ourselves,” said Arina Engelbrecht, UFS Employee Wellness Specialist.

Participants on all fitness and activity levels will gun for a 200 000 km target over 10 weeks.

The challenge kicked off on the Bloemfontein Campus with a 3-km walk at the launch, leaving 199 997 km between the four universities for the rest of the eight-week challenge.

News Archive

UFS Partner in Major DfID African Project

2012-09-26

This three-year initiative focuses on promoting and creating awareness of research uptake through the use of benchmarking between universities in similar regions. The multimillion Rand partnership is funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DfID).

The project is headed by a partnership between the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University, and Organisation Systems Design (OSD), a South African-based consultancy specialising in research management and capacity building sectors in Africa.

DRUSSA aims to build a socially interactive community of organisations who focus their research efforts on impacting policy and practice in their countries and to promote the dissemination of poverty reduction research beyond the academic domain.

The first benchmarking session of all 24 universities was held in Johannesburg during June, resulting in the development of the first benchmarking report on research uptake in Africa in August.Many capacity building opportunities are also funded through this initiative www.drussa.net.

The institutional representatives at UFS are Prof Aldo Stroebel (stroebea@ufs.ac.za) and Dr Sonja Loots at (lootss@ufs.ac.za).

First benchmarking report

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