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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

Extending new discoveries in the deep subsurface – UFS paper published in Nature Communications
2015-11-30



Scanning electron microscopy of some of the Eukarya recovered from two different mines. (a) Dochmiotrema sp. (Plathyelminthes), (b) A. hemprichi (Annelida), (c) Mylonchulus brachyurus (Nematoda), (d) Amphiascoides (Arthropoda). Scale bar, 50 µm (a,b), 100 µm (c), 20 µm (d).

Following the discovery of the first Eukarya in the deep subsurface (Nature, 2010) by a research group from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical, and Food Biotechnology at the University of the Free State (UFS) and their international collaborators, intense interest has developed in understanding the diversity of more complex organisms living in these extreme environments.

Prof Gaetan Borgonie from Extreme Life Isyensya, together with a group of UFS researchers, took this research further, resulting in a paper on this research released in Nature Communications – impact factor 11.47.  This paper is an extension of the first reports of more complex life at great depths, and their abilities to survive these harsh conditions.

Ten authors from the UFS contributed with the array of expertise needed to define this discovery. The group was supported by staff from the different mining groups, long-term leading collaborators from the USA and Canada, and the idea specialist driver of the paper, Prof Borganie.

“After a sampling campaign that lasted more than two years, we identified that Platyhelminthes, Rotifera, Annelida and Arthropoda are thriving at 1.4 km depths in fissure water up to 12,000-years old in the South African mines of Driefontein and Kopanang,” said Prof Borgonie, who was appointed as associated researcher in the Department of Microbial, Biochemical, and Food Biotechnology.

This paper really opens a “can of worms” so to speak. According to Prof Esta van Heerden from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the UFS they extended to define protozoa and fungi. “However, they are present in low numbers,” she said.

Characterisation of the different species reveals that many are opportunistic organisms. In house-adapted video equipment was used to film inside the fissure for the home of the organisms.

This is the first-known study to demonstrate the in situ distribution of biofilms on fissure rock faces using video documentation. Calculations suggest that food, not dissolved oxygen, is the limiting factor for population growth. The discovery of a group of complex multicellular organisms in the underground has important implications for the search for life on other planets in our solar system.

More articles

The strange beasts that live in solid rock deep underground
A microscopic ‘zoo’ is found deep, deep underground

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