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Well done to Kovsies GradStar top 11!

08 October 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Charl Devenish

Gradstar UFS — The 2019 GradStar programme is all about producing well-rounded students and providing them with opportunities in the world of work, explained Head of UFS Career Services, Belinda Janeke.

Congratulations to the Kovsies top-11 students who made it into the GradStar top-100 programme for 2019!

Each year, 100 South African students are selected through a rigorous four-phase judging process to become part of the GradStar programme. The programme is designed to offer opportunities for employment to previously unrecognised students.

What makes the top 11?

According to the UFS Head of Career Services, Belinda Janeke, the GradStar programme is all about producing a well-rounded student. Approximately 6 000 applications were received from Kovsies, of which 500 were selected based on a personality test. Another test was given to the 500 students who passed the personality test, after which interviews were conducted to determine the top 100 from the UFS.

The students who were selected to represent the UFS exhibited the most potential as future leaders in their respective fields. Apart from academic achievement, contestants were evaluated according to their individual soft skills such as motivation, discipline, altruism, and attitude. This combination promised to deliver top candidates for future employers.

2019 GradStar programme experiences

Throughout the competition, Kovsie contestants were exposed to new people and opportunities to network with various companies in their preferred career fields, where they had the opportunity to share their CVs with potential employers. Contestants were also afforded the opportunity to develop critical problem-solving skills in the world of work. The GradStar top-100 students also have a WhatsApp group where jobs are advertised.

The programme was valuable for the Kovsies; not only did it prepare them for employment, but also provided them with an opportunity for learning and recognising their own strengths and weaknesses as individuals in the working world.

Congratulations to the Kovsies who made it into the GradStar top 100:

Mariné du Toit: Bachelor of Social Work
Nyiko Maluleka: Bachelor of Arts, Corporate and Marketing Communication
Bianca Malan: Bachelor of Accounting, Financial Accounting
Boitumelo Mancoe: Master of Business Administration
Kabelo Mashego: Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB)
Kananelo Moletsane: Bachelor of Agriculture
Mudzunga Mukwevho: Bachelor of Accounting, Financial Accounting
Neo Roberts: Bachelor of Science, Information Technology
Refilwe Maimane: Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting
Themba Makhoba: Bachelor of Public Administration
Mpolokeng Mmutle: Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting

News Archive

Lecture focuses on how Marikana widows embody the transformative power of art

2015-08-11

Makopane Thelejane

"When I got the news of my husband is dead, I put my hands above my head, as you see me in this picture. I could not bear the ache in my heart." - Makopane Thelejane

A woman looks down on a canvas covered in thick layers of red, dark shadows falling across her face. A brief moment that captures the silently-devastating aftermath of the Marikana massacre that bled into the lives of 34 widows.

It is this silent trauma that was at the centre of the last instalment of the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series for 2015. “These stories of the Marikana widows are important. It is these stories of silence that live behind the spectacular scenes of the violence,” Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS) said at the event.

Panel
The lecture, which took place on Monday 27 July 2015 on the Bloemfontein Campus, took the form of a panel discussing the theme of “Speaking wounds: voices of Marikana widows through art and narrative”. The panel consisted of members from the Khulumani Support Group, including Dr Marjorie Jobson (National Director) and Judy Seidman (Sociologist and Graphic Artist), as well as Nomfundo Walaza, former CEO of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre.

Betty Lomasontlo Gadlela

"Then this dark time came, a dark cloud over me. It made me to have an aching heart, which took me to hospital, from losing my loved one, my husband, in such a terrible manner. " - Betty Lomasontlo Gadlela

Trauma made visible
In a project initiated by Khulumani, the Marikana widows were encouraged to share their trauma through painting body maps – in which the widows depicted their own bodies immersed in their trauma – and narrating their personal stories. Throughout the workshops, the focus always remained on the women. As Siedman put it, “the power of this process is rooted in the participants. The statements of what the participants experienced is what’s important.”

Initially silenced and isolated, this group of women has now moved “into a space where they have become connected to each, and stand up for each other in the most powerful ways,” Dr Jobson said. “Our work is conceptualised in terms of giving visibility and voice to the people who know what it takes to change this country; to change this struggle.”

The transformative power of art and narrative
During her response, Walaza pointed out “how art and narrative can transform traumatic memory and become integrated in the survivors’ life story.” This gives individuals the opportunity, she said, “to step into a space of mutual listening and dialoguing in which people bond together.”

Co-hosted by Prof Gobodo-Madikizela and the UFS Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, the lecture series forms part of a five-year research project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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