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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

The launch of a unique conservation project

2011-06-06

Our Department of Animal, Wildlife and Grassland Sciences launched a very special pilot project at Woodland Hills Wildlife Estate in Bloemfontein on Friday 03 June 2011, which aims to eventually aid in the conservation and study of one of Africa’s most graceful animals.

The project aims to provide the scientific basis needed for making future decisions in the best interests of the giraffe in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the Northern Cape and involves collaring and monitoring the behaviour and movement of these animals via GPS.

Based on the public interest in the giraffe and the increased impact of the growing giraffe population on the vegetation in the area, SANParks has been considering the translocation of a number of Kgalagadi giraffe. Due to limited information regarding their adaptation success and potential impact on their new environment, thorough planning and subsequent monitoring of the species is required.

Mr Francois Deacon from our university decided to undertake a PhD study to address the existing challenges. This will be the first study of its kind, undertaken on giraffe.

He says he decided on this project because of his love for animals and conservation. “There are nine sub-species of giraffe and seven of these are already endangered. I want to involve people and make them aware of the plight of the animals and the need for conservation,” he said.

The project kicked off on Friday morning, with a group of students and curious nature-lovers tracking a herd of giraffe at Woodland Hills. The challenge laid in identifying one of the animals which could easily be collared with a GPS device, tranquilising it, and applying the device, without harming the animal.

After a young bull was identified, it was up to Dr Floris Coetzee, a veterinarian, to get close enough to the animal to tranquilise it, and to the group of students to catch it and hold it down. All this was done perfectly and the animal was fitted with its new collars. The collars were designed and made by Mr Martin Haupt, who gained extensive experience in the design of similar collars for other research studies.

Mr Deacon will spend the following two weeks personally monitoring the animal constantly, to ensure that the collars do not cause any discomfort or injury and to determine whether it should be removed or adapted.

It has taken Mr Deacon over a year to plan the collaring process and the associated study. He says the main challenges in the project are financial, since it will cost approximately R500 000 to run over five years.

Thus far he has been supported by Mr Pieter Malan of Woodland Hills, Mr Cas Kempff of Cas Kempff Consulting Engineers and Prof. Frans Swanepoel of the UFS’ Directorate of Research Development, all of whom have been benefactors of the project.
Information gathered from the pilot project will provide the data to assess how to best fit the collar onto the giraffe to ensure that the animal is comfortable and that the collar will last in the wild. Scientific data will be generated and processed for use by the Woodland Hills Wildlife Estate management.

Should the pilot project be successful, between four and eight giraffe in the Kgalagadi will be tracked using the satellite GPS collars. The GPS collars will enable the constant recording of the location of individual giraffe for up to 2 years. This will allow control and monitoring of the animals in real-time.

The main benefits of the project include, amongst others, improved decision-making, informing tourism development, education and community involvement, improved sustainability and improved cross-border collaboration between South Africa and Botswana.

Anyone who wishes to get involved with the project or get more information, should contact Me. Sonja Buhrmann at sbuhrmann@vodamail.co.za or 0827735768.

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