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Off-campus students at the centre of Safety Summit

04 November 2019 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Charl Devenish

SK Luwaca at UFS Safety Summit for off-campus students — Sikhululekile Luwaca, leader of the UFS Safety Champions, addresses a delegation at the Higher Education Safety Summit from 18-19 October 2019 at the Bloemfontein Campus.

A meeting of minds over student safety recently took place at Kovsies. The Higher Education Safety Summit saw a cohort of 165 students from the University of the Free State (UFS), Central University of Technology and Sol Plaatje University, collaborating with the heads of Protection Services from the respective institutions to devise a safety blueprint specifically focusing on the off-campus environment.

“The rental tribunal came on board to assist with rental disputes between students and landlords, in addition to accreditation issues being discussed,” Sikhululekile Luwaca, former SRC President of the Bloemfontein Campus and leader of the UFS Safety Champions that form part of the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice.

Luwaca further said that the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality also committed to assist the universities in addressing crime and enforcing by-laws. “A strategic safety plan was developed around spatialisation and zoning of student communes, developing a system that will assist universities to establish where students stay by using technology such as geographic information system (GIS),” he added.

What were the objectives of the summit?
Being the first of many to come, the summit set out clear objectives which all stakeholders have committed to work tirelessly to achieve, both in the short and long term.

The goals of the summit were threefold. Firstly, the intention was to build capacity between students and staff of all institutions involved to implement programmes by transferring the skills and knowledge between one another.

Secondly, the idea was to gather and consolidate input from the various higher-learning institutions and by so doing diversify the solutions. Thirdly, the purpose of the summit was to create an official platform where partners may consult on interventions that will ripple from the local, to the provincial and further to national level.

Andiswa Msomi, Spatialisation Group Leader and the Safety Champions’ administrator said she appreciated the shift in perspective that the summit brought. “The summit brought to my attention that sometimes we focus so deeply on one aspect of a problem that we end up not seeing alternative solutions. Due to active participants, new solutions came up, new ideas were brought forth and more importantly, we were able to get other institutions on board,” she said.

What are some of the tangible outcomes?
Going forward, an internal report which focuses on crime prevention measures will be presented to all UFS stakeholders. An external report, which will be submitted by the Safety Champions to the government in January 2020, is expected to be integrated into the Provincial Crime Prevention Strategy.

News Archive

Haemophilia home infusion workshop

2017-12-17

Parents receive training for homecare of their children with haemophilia.
Photo Supplied

Caregivers for haemophilia patients, and patients themselves from around the Free State and Northern Cape attended a home infusion workshop held by the Clinical Skills unit in the Faculty of Health Sciences in July 2017. “It felt liberating and I feel confident to give the factor to my son correctly,” said Amanda Chaba-Okeke, the mother of a young patient, at the workshop. Her son, also at the workshop, agreed. “It felt lovely and good to learn how to administer factor VIII.”

Clinical skills to empower parents and communities
There were two concurrent sessions: one attended by doctors from the Haemophilia Treatment Centre, and the other attended by community members including factor VIII and XI recipients, caregivers and parents. The doctors’ meeting was shown informative videos and demonstrations on how to administer the newly devised factor VII and XI kit, and discussed the pressing need for trained nurses at local clinics. Dr Jaco Joubert, a haematologist, made an educational presentation to the community members.

The South African Haemophilia Foundation was represented by Mahlomola Sewolane, who gave a brief talk about the role of the organisation in relation to the condition. Meanwhile, procedural training in the simulation laboratory involved doctors and nurses helping participants to learn the procedures by using mannequins and even some volunteers from among the patients.

A medical condition causing serious complications
Haemophilia is a medical condition in which the ability of the blood to clot is severely impaired, even from a slight injury. The condition is typically caused by a hereditary lack of a coagulation factor, most often factor VIII. Usually patients must go through replacement therapy in which concentrates of clotting factor VIII (for haemophilia A) or clotting factor IX (for haemophilia B) are slowly dripped or injected into the vein, to help replace the clotting factor that is missing or low. Patients have to receive this treatment in hospital.

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