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21 May 2019 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Stephen Collett
Digital storytelling
Collaborating for the common good are from left: Willem Ellis, Karen Venter, Dr Deidre van Rooyen, Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, and Dr Johan van Zyl.
Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences quoted the Cat Stevens song I can’t keep it in, to capture the excitement surrounding the opening of a Digital Storytelling Lab on the Bloemfontein Campus on 10 May 2019.

After months of hard work by Dr Deidre van Rooyen, Willem Ellis, Karen Venter, as well as the staff of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Centre for Development Support, the Common Good First lab was completed just in time for the launch attended by about 50 delegates from other South African universities, as well as private and public institutions.

Stories meet technology

In a message, from Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, informed the audience that the launch heralded the joining of the old world of stories with the new world of digital technology. Julie Adair, Director of Digital Collaboration at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, welcomed the UFS as a partner to this international social innovation collaborative project in a video message. 

Dr Van Rooyen, the project manager for the UFS, explained how she got involved in the Common Good First project, what the benefits of digital storytelling are, as well as what opportunities the lab creates for cooperation between role players involved in social innovation projects. 

Why the Common Good First lab?

The purpose of the lab is to create a digital network to identify, showcase and connect social innovation projects in South Africa to one another and to universities around the world for research, student engagement and learning and teaching. The lab has been fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for recording and digitising the stories that result from social innovation projects.

In a live Skype session with Dr Il-Haam Petersen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and some of the recent successes of the digital stories in Philippi in the Western Cape were shared.

Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, UFS Director Community Engagement did the final honours by cutting the ribbon, declaring the lab open, and sharing the dream that the work done in this lab will contribute to positive relationships and cooperation between the university and the community, in making not only the university, but the country and the world a better place.


News Archive

New Research in Hebrew Language and Culture
2014-01-17

The newly formed Department of Hebrew at the university is hosting an international conference from 27 to 29 January 2014. The conference has speakers from Israel, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia, as well as South Africa, Zambia, Congo and Nigeria. The goal of the conference is to highlight recent research in Hebrew language and culture by bringing international scholarship to the university and by highlighting the importance of the African context as a conceptual space for research on Hebrew. The rich cultural heritage of Hebrew finds particular resonance in Africa through the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).

Some highlights from the conference include new research on the use of the ancient Hebrew script by Jews in the Persian and Roman periods as a means to maintain their religious and ethnic identity in times of distress, linguistic research on metaphors in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Jews and non-Jews in the Hebrew and Yiddish writings of the South African author Morris Hoffman, the development of a rabbinic prayer for rain in the land of Israel and in South Africa, pedagogical advances in teaching Hebrew in Africa, and translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as a means of reshaping VaTsonga cultural identity. 

The study of ancient and modern Hebrew language and culture provides important insights into the complex cultural situation in modern Africa, generally, and South Africa, in particular. The use of language by minority religious and ethnic groups can provide a powerful force for identity in turbulent political realities. Religious texts can be re-contextualised to provide guidance in new cultural contexts or translated to enhance and empower local societies. 

Venue: CR Swart Auditorium 

For more information, contact Prof Cynthia Miller-Naudé, Head of the Department of Hebrew at millercl@ufs.ac.za . 
 
 

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