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18 April 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin

The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice IRSJ) has initiated a Social Justice Week at the University of the Free State (UFS), which started on Friday 12 April  until Wednesday 17 April 2019. 

Ten key events took place during the week. It ranged from dialogues, workshops, talk shows, debates, and interactive displays and events on issues of multilingualism and diversity, social innovation, engaged scholarship, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, gender sensitisation, sexual consent, sexual preparedness, universal access, disability, anti-discrimination, and security.

There was also a round-table discussion on 17 April 2019 with various UFS stakeholders on off-campus student security as well as an inter-institutional discussion on the same topic. The UFS Debating Society will take on the topic of the UFS Language Policy, while Olga Barends from the Free State Centre for Human Rights will host a dialogue on sexual consent.

The IRSJ has also designed and implemented SOJO-VATION: Social Innovation/ Social Change, which strives to create a foundational platform where ideas of social justice, innovation, and engaged scholarship at the UFS and in society can be hosted. SOJO-VATION partners with the Office for Student Leadership, Development, and Community Engagement.

The collaborating partners for the Social Justice Week includes various UFS stakeholders such as the Sasol library, the Gender and Sexual Equity Office, UFS Protection Services, the Free State Centre for Human Rights, the Student Representative Council (SRC), the Office for Student Leadership Development, Kovsie Innovation, GALA, the FFree State Centre for Human Rights, SRC Associations, the Office for Student Governance, Kovsie Innovate, Start-Up-Grind, EVC, EBL, Community Engagement, the Institutional Transformation Plan (ITP) Dialogues Office, Residence Dialogues, UFS Debating Society, Debate Afrika!, the Center for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS), and the Gateway Office. 

News Archive

A woman with a vision and dreams
2014-09-19

Louzanne Coetzee recently made Kovsie -history when she became the first blind woman to be elected to the SRC in the portfolio for Student Accessibility and Support. She has not even considered standing for the SRC before, though.

“I wanted to create awareness of disabled students on campus,” Louzanne says. “By running for SRC and this specific portfolio, I thought it would be a great way to do so.” She has a lot of ideas on how to make the portfolio function better and to link the accessibility and support braches of the portfolio.

Louzanne has a passion for leadership. “I think this is a great platform for me to live out my values.” She describes herself as dynamic, but admits that she often pushes herself very hard to achieve the goals she has set out for herself. “I’m also very competitive. But I believe I can make it work to my advantage by setting goals regarding my leadership position on campus to make them happen.”

Having won several gold medals at athletic track events, Louzanne also aims to be selected for the South African 2016 Paralympics team.

And the one dream after another coming true for her, arises from a firm belief in the right attitude.

“I believe that with one’s attitude one can achieve anything. My personal motto has always been ‘mind management is life management’. One of the greatest lessons I have ever learned is that everything is determined by your attitude. The latter determines how you live your life and handle situations.”

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