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Learning festival empowers and develops

11 September 2019 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Charl Devenish

Anita Venter from the Start Living Green grassroots development initiative is saving the earth, one eco-brick at a time.

This year saw the seventh Father Heart Engaged Learning Festival taking place on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State. Sixty plus training providers exhibited at the festival, which was presented by the UFS Directorate: Community Engagement. Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, Director of Community Engagement, says communities must take responsibility and use this opportunity to develop and empower themselves.

Save the environment

Acquiring new skills always results in personal development. One project, however, stood out as not only an opportunity to equip yourself, but also to save the environment. Anita Venter from the Start Living Green grassroots-development initiative believes that more than a million species on the most endangered list will be extinct before 2050. Then there is also the climate crisis that we as humans are contributing to. The production of plastic (6,3 billion metric tons) is adding to this dire situation.

She believes that the use of eco-bricks can remove plastic from the system; you can manufacture your own furniture, thereby reducing the need to produce more plastic. “We can take responsibility for our own trash,” she said.

A brick consists of a two-litre plastic cold-drink bottle filled with pieces of plastic and paper. Several eco-bricks can be glued together to make benches and eco-brick modular furniture pieces. These pieces of furniture can be used in households or in institutions such as schools.

Love the job

Kleinboy Trading Enterprises offered practical training with a hands-on approach. Focusing on carpentry, Mokhele Mokhele Kleinboy, who provided training at the learning festival for the fourth year, believes that teaching this skill to the youth keeps them off the streets. It also empowers them to either start their own business or find a job.

Find your truth

Marié Olivier, the Director of Life Principles for Transformation, is helping dysfunctional individuals to flourish through her equine-assisted processes for personal growth. She believes one needs to be aware of situations in your life to be able to do something about them.

“The honest feedback from the horses in this process mirrors what is going on in your life and helps you to find your own truth. Once you have identified the obstacles and challenges you are faced with, you can make better choices.”

“It is a good process to differentiate between what is real and what is only going on in your head. If things in your life work out, the process with the horses will flow. If you get stuck in life, the process with the horses will get stuck.”

“This is not therapy, but a growth session,” explains Olivier.

At this year’s festival she worked with Nicole Joubert, horse-behaviour specialist, dressage judge, provincial rider, and coach.

The equine-assisted process develops aspects such as personal discovery, promotes self-awareness, helps with identifying your strengths, and improve problem-solving skills. Olivier says their goal at the festival was to tell the community that they are available and that they can help to promote self-awareness and empower people.

Transferring your skills to the workplace, whether as a graduate or an entrepreneur, does not come easy for everyone. Rosita Rhode, career development coordinator at the Central University of Technology, presented a session aimed at empowering the attendees to communicate better, work better in a team, and improve self-management in a workplace situation.

Mokhele Mokhele Kleinboy provided carpentry training for the fourth consecutive year at the Learning Festival.

Paying it forward

“It is our commitment that you should transform yourself and contribute to a better South Africa,” said Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement at the UFS, on opening the learning festival.

Two attendees, Sibongile Mofokeng and Moipone Rakhale from the Qwaqwa Agape Foundation for Community Development, did just that.
“We will take the new skills we found at the festival back home to share it with the community,” said Mofokeng.

They attended sessions on woodwork and planting, as well as blanket-making and carpentry.

“We will teach and apply our new skills aimed at women empowerment, food and nutrition, and caring for persons of old age and orphans in the projects at the centre,” Mofokeng continued.

“We experienced love at the festival. People were happy; we talked to so many people – black, white. We are one nation with one heart,” concluded Rakhale.

Rakhale’s statement resonates with the late Izak Botes’ intention for the festival, namely, to share the Father’s Heart of love and to offer hope to many. According to Karen Venter, Head of the Service-Learning Division, Directorate: Community Engagement, Izak’s legacy will continue to live at the heart of the festival.

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News Archive

State-of-the-art physics equipment and investment in students result in academic success

2017-09-26

At the recent nanotechnology facility tour at the UFS,
were, from the left, Dr Mthuthuzeli Zamxaka, SAASTA;
Prof Hendrik Swart, Sarchi Chair in the Department of Physics;
and Xolani Makhoba, Department of Science and Technology.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Nanoscience, which is revealing new properties of very small arrangements of atoms, called nanoparticles, is opening a new world of possibilities. The Department of Physics at the University of the Free State is undertaking fundamental research with potential commercial applications. Its equipment and expertise is giving solid state physics research the edge in South Africa.

The UFS team of researchers and students are passionate about studying planets and atoms, all under one roof. Recently, the department, in collaboration with the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA), hosted a nanotechnology facility tour to give the public, learners and the media the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the science of nanotechnology, its origins, potential applications and risks.

Successes of the department
According to Prof Hendrik Swart, Senior Professor in the Department of Physics, the increase in resources since 2008 is playing a big role in the success rate of its research outputs. The Sarchi Chair awarded to Prof Swart in 2012 (bringing with it funding for equipment and bursaries) also contributed to the successes in the department.

The UFS Directorate Research Development also availed funding that was used for bursaries. These bursaries made it possible for the department to appoint 10 post-doctoral fellows, not one of them originally from South Africa.

The investment in people and equipment resulted in researchers and students publishing some 80 articles in 2016. Their work was also cited more than 900 times by other researchers in that year.

Another highlight in terms of the department’s growth in the past 10 years is the new wing of the Physics Building. Physics at the UFS is the only place in sub-Saharan Africa where state-of-the art equipment is found under one roof.

Antonie Fourie, Junior Lecturer in the UFS Department of
Physics, explained to a group of delegates and
members of the media the workings of an electron beam
evaporation system.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Application of research
The department is a unique research facility with equipment that includes the X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (for the study of atoms), the Scanning Auger Microscope, as well as the Ion Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (revealing the chemical bonds in a sample, and drawing maps of the positions of atoms).

One of the areas on which the department is focusing its research, is phosphors. Researchers are exploring light emitting diodes (LEDs) which use less energy, are brighter and provide a wider viewing field. They are also looking into LED displays (LCDs) which are used in flat screens – the phosphors create the different colours and backlighting.

The research on solar cells reveals that phosphors can increase their efficiency by increasing the range of light frequencies which can be converted into electricity. Glow-in-the-dark coatings absorb light in the day and emit it later so cells can charge at night. As glow-in-the-dark phosphors become cheaper and more effective, they can be used as a lighting substitute on the walls of houses, street numbers and stop signs.

Video production of the Department of Physics research and equipment

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