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06 May 2019 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Barend Nagel
Africa Month
Africa Month; a time to celebrate and reflect on African unity in diversity.

Africa Day marks the commemoration of the establishment of the Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU), now called the African Union (AU). Every year on 25 May the continent celebrates its diverse peoples and cultures. At the University of the Free State (UFS), Africa Month is pinned on the calendar as a time for critical conversation. This year, it coincides with the general elections on 8 May 2019, when South Africans will exercise their democratic right to vote.
  
Opportunity versus opportunism

A series of events such as the Annual Africa Day Memorial Lecture, hosted by the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies will mark the memorable month. Prof Francis Nyamnjoh is expected delve deeper into the topic of Ubuntu-ism and Africa: Reconciling opportunity and opportunism.  

Giving back to locals

The Student Representative Council is to champion a community outreach programme known as Meal In A Jar. This initiative will see learners at Joe Solomon Primary School in Heidedal receiving a hearty meal and stationery as a gesture of ubuntu and engaged scholarship. 

Dialogue beyond borders

The Office for International Affairs is to host the second Annual Africa Day Reflection and Celebration event at which topical issues of continental importance will be dealt with.

Migration, segregation, and liberation

The Debate Society together with the History Student Society will unpack Africa’s role in South Africa’s liberation, the formation of Southern Africa’s borders, and free internal migration policy. 

Debate on African Boarders
Tuesday 21 May 2019
15:00-17:30
Albert Wessels Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus

Annual Africa Day Memorial Lecture
Wednesday 22 May 2019
17:30
Equitas Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus

Meal In A Jar
Thursday 23 May 2019
14:00
Joe Solomon Primary School, Heidedal

2019 Africa Day Reflection and Celebration (Livestream)
Friday 24 May 2019
11:00-14:00
Reitz Hall, Centenary Complex, Bloemfontein Campus

News Archive

UFS starts lecture series on reconciliation and empathy
2012-02-28

 

Attending the inaugural Dialogue between Science and Society lecture were from left: Profs Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Jean Decety,Dr Melike Fourie, a researcher at the University of Cape Town,  and Prof. Driekie Hay, Vice-Rector: Academic.
Photo: Johan Roux
28 February 2012


The University of the Free State has begun with the first of a series of lectures that will deal with issues of humanity.

The Dialogue between Science and Society Lecture series, hosted by Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, will bring together different disciplines such as Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience and Literature to explore the broad field of reconciliation and empathy.
 
Prof. Jean Decety, a leading scholar in the social neuroscience of empathy at the University of Chicago delivered the inaugural lecture on 23 February 2012. He spoke about the social neuroscience of empathy and moral reasoning.
 
Drawing lessons from US president Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, Prof. Decety opened his speech with a quote on empathy as the glue that makes much of social life possible. He said a feeling of empathy means putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes. Prof. Decety discussed in depth the link between empathy and helping, saying that it linked to morality.
 
Prof. Gobodo-Madikizela, author of the bookA human being died that night: a South African story of forgiveness, on her interviews with convicted Vlakplaas murderer Eugene de Kock, recently joined our university.

 

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