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21 October 2019 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo Tshepo Moeketsi
Qwaqwa research research
Mamokete Mokhatla (SRC: International Students Council), Pulane Xaba (Assistant: Afromontane Research Unit), Dr Hagenmeier, Morena Ntsane Mopeli, Prof Pearl Sithole, Chief Mlati, Kanego Mogotsi (Internationalisation: Qwaqwa Campus), and Prof Joseph Francis.

Communities are beginning to wonder if universities exist for themselves or for their communities. This is the view shared by Prof Pearl Sithole, Campus Vice-Principal: Academic and Research, during the opening of the two-day Travelling Seminar that was recently hosted on the Qwaqwa Campus. 

Research in communities

“This event is well-placed, considering what many communities are currently going through. We must ask ourselves what we are doing with and for our communities. We must be careful to not only reap data from them, but to be scientific in a way that accommodates our communities and allows the African and indigenous agenda into the world of science,” she added.

Providing background to the concept of homestays, the Director: Institute for Rural Development at the University of Venda, Prof Joseph Francis, acknowledged the role played by communities in research.

 “This seminar seeks to develop a testable framework for homestays; a concept enabling postgraduate students to be placed with rural families while conducting research in the area. It is also aimed at giving birth to a vibrant, community-based rural and regional development network connecting grassroots communities, business, government, and non-governmental stakeholders,” he said.

“We do not only train students for local deployment and within national borders. It is important to produce an ‘all-weather’ graduate who stands out wherever they are. Graduates must ask themselves, ‘what in me stands out among the rest?’ As a student and researcher, never see yourself as being confined to the space where you are,” he added.

Students as ambassadors

Cornelius Hagenmeier, Director: Office of International Affairs at the University of the Free State, said for internationalisation to work, it has to be inclusive and create student ambassadors. “As this seminar will show, our networks of stakeholder communities go beyond the national confines and borders. We must strive, through this project, to create ambassadors of the university, of communities, of the broader South Africa and Africa,” he said.

Participants in the seminar were academics and postgraduate students from both the Universities of the Free State and Venda. Also present were community and traditional leaders from Qwaqwa and the Vhembe District in Limpopo. 

News Archive

UFS Autumn Graduation inspires perseverance
2015-04-20

 

Louzanne Coetzee and her guide dog, Oakley after she received her degree at the UFS’s Autumn Graduation.
Photo: Gerhardus Bosch

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Prof Himla Soodyall
Mr Ndumiso Hadebe
Leanne Manas
Dr Maria Phalime
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Autumn has seen the UFS’s first graduation ceremonies of the year on the Bloemfontein Campus. From 14 to 17 April 2015, a total of 3 660 graduates were rewarded for their hard work while top speakers addressed them in the Callie Human Centre.

UFS Chancellor, Dr Khotso Mokhele, commented the more than 250 students who passed their degrees with distinctions at the autumn graduation.

Prof Soodyall, a Medical Scientist at the South African Institute for Medical Research as well as  Principal Medical Scientist for the National Health Laboratory Service, and Director for the Human Genome Diversity and Disease Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand delivered the first motivational message of the April Graduation. The group of graduates in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences listened as she shared her story with them.
 
"My own career – with no grand design or script – steered me into conducting genetic research on human populations from sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on a better understanding of human evolution, and to reconstruct the prehistory of African populations. While giving graduates a glimpse on how her career progressed, Prof Soodyall said: "I share these stories with you to give you some reassurance that you do not need feel that you have to figure out every minute detail of where to from here. Things fall into place with hard work, dedication, and dreams.

The developed world is forging ahead with interventions, so the gap between the developed world and the developing world continues to grow bigger. Prof Soodyall said: “You have the unenviable opportunity to think strategically, and to use the modern tools in your respective fields to make significant advances to transform our society, and to contribute to making it a better place for all. We need to embrace the current challenges, and build networks and bridges across disciplines to close the gaps, to work beyond the cultural barriers, and to ensure equity in access to health, water, education, etc, for all, as we would wish these things for ourselves and our families.

Read the full story of the Autumn Graduation 2015

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