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03 April 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Vhugala Nthakheni
Uhuru Qwaqwa Arrival
The #UFSWalkToUhuru team arrives at the UFS Qwaqwa Campus on Friday 22 March.

The University of the Free State (UFS) Division of Student Affairs, in collaboration with the UFS Office for International Affairs, have joined hands to drive a fundraising and student-accessibility initiative dubbed, ‘The Walk to Uhuru’ (#UFSWalktoUhuru), which is aimed at raising funds and advocating for the educational rights of the less privileged. 

The project aims to raise funds in excess of R2 million from the public and stakeholders affiliated with the UFS (Kovsie staff and students). The project derives from the 2018/2019 UFS Institutional Student Representative Council (ISRC) mandate ‘Students Must Graduate’. The ISRC mandate aims to source funding opportunities for UFS students to register, and to complete their studies across all three campuses in 2020 and beyond.

The first leg of the project, a 350 km walk from the Bloemfontein to the Qwaqwa Campus, has already taken place and concluded on Friday, 22 March 2019 as planned. The #UFSWalkToUhuru team successfully completed the first leg of their journey to academic freedom for financially disadvantaged students at the UFS. The Uhuru team is now focusing its attention on the second leg and is determined to take on Mount Kilimanjaro (Uhuru) from 20 June to 20 July 2019.

The team sat down for a debriefing session to unpack the overall experience and result of the first half of the initiative, and they all agreed that the walk to Qwaqwa was an enlightening experience. It was a walk that comprised learning opportunities, team building, and goal crushing.

According to Rethabile Motseki, member of the #UFSWalkToUhuru team, the walk to Qwaqwa made a significant impact on the project, as the university community is now aware of the significant goals that the team is trying to accomplish. The team has also resumed their fitness-training programme to ensure that they are ready to take on the Uhuru climb in June.

A media briefing will take place shortly (date to be confirmed) to detail the ongoing fundraising initiatives rolled out by the #UFSWalkToUhuru team.  We implore you, and the nation as a whole, to help establish a better future for disadvantaged UFS students by donating to the initiative.

Students, staff, and the public can support the cause and make contributions/donations to the initiative by visiting the UFS Walk to Uhuru #givengain account page.

For more information, contact UFS SRC President, Sonwabile Dwaba, on DwabaSJ@ufs.ac.za  or Rethabile Motseki on MotsekiR@ufs.ac.za  

News Archive

Dr Chantel Swart the ‘Expert on Stage’
2013-06-04

 

Presents Extraordinary Findings at International Nanomedicine Conference.
Photo: Sonia Small
04 June 2013

Dr Chantel Swart, an alumnus of the Prestige Scholars Programme (PSP) from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, is an invited “Expert on Stage” at the 4th International Nanomedicine Conference to be held in Sydney, Australia from 1 – 3 July 2013.

She is to share the podium with world authorities in nanomedicine.

Dr Swart’s presentation, “A New Nanotechnology for Nanomedicine”, will convey findings that made international headlines. She is part of the nanotechnology group of Prof Lodewyk Kock that discovered gas bubbles inside cells when using Auger-architectomics, a nanotechnology they developed in 2010. This nanotechnology is used to track nanomedicine inside cancer cells in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic in the US.

The Kock Nanotechnology Group includes scholars from the departments of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, Physics, Chemistry, the Centre for Microscopy (all from the UFS) and South African Breweries. Their breakthrough is also showcased on the cover of all issues of 2013 FEMS Yeast Research, a leading journal in yeast research. BiotecVisions and Global Medical Discovery (GMD) both selected this work for worldwide promotion at the end of 2012.

Dr Swart’s future research will use this newly-developed nanotechnology to visualize and hence explore the exposed nano-world. This will include work on the architecture of cells and effects of various drugs on cell metabolism.

A virtual tour is available at: http://vimeo.com/user6296337/videos.

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