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09 October 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Barend Nagel
Braille Signage
Big on Braille: Members of the Kovsie community who are living with visual impairments can now access directions through the new braille system.

The University of the Free State (UFS) commemorate World Sight Day, which is celebrated annually on the second Thursday of October. The day has been set aside and aimed at drawing attention to blindness and vision. This was originally initiated by the #SightFirstCampaign of the Lions Club International Foundation in 2000. 
The university aims to contribute to the development and social justice of all students through the production of globally competitive graduates. Thus, the development and implementation of co-curricular programmes, activities, services, and mutual infrastructure will allow for humanising daily lived experiences among students, which are essential for universal access, student academic success, social behaviour, engagement, and an inclusive institutional culture.

With this in mind, the university rolled out a capital project that included the construction of tactile pathways with braille indicators on the pathways, designed to support and caution pedestrians who are blind or visually impaired. The indicators are universally accessible, because it includes Braille and text. The text then gives indications to new students who are also struggling to find their way around campus.

A UFS Bachelor of Social Sciences student who dreams of becoming a social worker, Tshegofatso Nkatlholang, who was born partially blind, but is now completely blind is motivated by the prospect of living a life where she has the ability to help the less fortunate. Her opinion of the construction and implementation of the new tactile pathways on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus is that they are extremely helpful. She went on to say, “That is my road, and I am grateful for a university that strives to operate an inclusive infrastructural environment where I don’t feel sidelined.”
Kovsie student Keamogetswe Mbele was born partially blind with very low vision, eventually losing her eyesight. She explained that she had no knowledge of the newly built braille indicators on the tactile pathways, but that she felt appreciative of the university’s initiative to constitute an inclusive academic and infrastructural environment for all students on campus. Motivated by her personal goals of independence and financial freedom, ‘Kamo’, as her peers refer to her, is determined to live a prosperous academic life throughout the course of her studies at the UFS.

According to Mookgo Moloi, a Kovsie student who was not born blind but gradually lost her sight at the age of 15, said, “Life on campus is very caring”. She reflected on the opportunities, as well as the technical and emotional support that the Center for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS) has provided her, which has made her academic career a lot easier, and more advantageous for her to graduate. 
CUADS further strives to facilitate, create opportunities, and enhance students’ understanding of multiple intersections and ways of being that are consistent with human rights and the principles of social justice.




News Archive

Prof Barney Pityana to deliver the inaugural Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture
2013-04-24

 

Prof Barney Pityana
Photo: Supplied
24 April 2013

Well-known academic and human rights lawyer Prof Barney Pityana will deliver the inaugural Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture on Friday 26 April 2013,honouring the life and legacy of the anti-apartheid stalwart. Prof Pityana will be joined by Fischer’s daughters Ruth Rice and Ilse Wilson and his nephew Peter in the President CR Swart Auditorium on the Bloemfontein Campus.

Prof Pityana has an impressive track record of accomplishments:

He is the current Rector of the College of the Transfiguration in Grahamstown; one of the founding members of the South African Students' Organisation; an important figure in the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko; and an exponent of Black theology.

Prof Pityana is the former Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and also a former chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission.He has served on the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights at the Organization of African Unity in 1997. Prof Pityana’s work in human rights has been widely recognised and in December 2002 he was awarded an Honourable Mention of the 2002 UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education.

In April 2006, Prof Pityana received the Award of the Order of the Grand Counsellor of the Baobab: Silver from former President Thabo Mbeki.

Prof Pityana will meet with students from the Faculty of Law during the day of the lecture. At 12:00 the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice will host a critical conversation discussing Bram Fischer as a father and Afrikaner communist lawyer. The conversation will feature the perspective of his daughters. The Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture will commence at 18:30.

Programme:

1. Critical Conversation: Bram Fischer as a father and Afrikaner communist lawyer

Date: Friday 26 April 2013

Venue: Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice

Time: 12:00 – 14:00

2. Inaugural Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture

Date: Friday 26 April 2013

Venue: President CR Swart Auditorium

Time: 18:30 – 20:00

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