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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  

Dr Martin Mandew, Qwaqwa Campus Principal
Dr Martin Mandew, Qwaqwa Campus Principal
#UFSWalktoUhuru arrives the Qwaqwa Campus
#UFSWalktoUhuru arrives the Qwaqwa Campus
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News Archive

Internet Broadcast Project wins international award
2014-05-05

The Enterprise Video Awards (EVA) named Kovsies’ Internet Broadcast Project (IBP) the winner of the Innovation in Pedagogy category. During a glitzy ceremony on 28 April 2014 in Madison, USA, Edward Musgrave, Deputy Director of the ICTISE Division, took to the stage to receive the award.

The IBP makes use of the best teachers in the Free State to broadcast lessons on more than ten subjects to school learners who do not have access to quality education. And it is not only the learners who benefit. Their teachers receive invaluable training in the process as well.

This remarkable programme provided the judges with plentiful evidence to be named the winner. The IBP team had to come up with highly innovative solutions to overcome the costs of local bandwidth constraints. The result? High definition videos being streamed in real time across a 1Meg line. Simultaneously to 70 centres across the Free State. Added to that is the fact that multiple images are broadcast as one, reaching 43 000 learners and 1 250 teachers per week. To top it all, the broadcast is interactive – the learners can ask questions directly to the teacher during the lesson.

All of this at no cost to the schools.

“It is remarkable for a South African university to receive this international recognition,” said Sarietjie Musgrave, heading up the ICTISE programme at the South Campus. “It raises awareness, not only for the work we do, but also the community work the university does,” she said.

And now the Free State has the highest pass rate of matriculants in South Africa.

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