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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

Twenty years of the constitution of South Africa – cause for celebration and reflection

2016-05-11

Description: Judge Azar Cachalia Tags: Judge Azar Cachalia

Judge Azar Cachalia

The University of the Free State’s Centre for Human Rights and the Faculty of Law held the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the South African Constitution on 11 May 2016 on the Bloemfontein Campus. Students and faculty members celebrated and reflected on not only the achievements of the constitution but also on perspectives regarding its relevance in modern society, and to what extent it has upheld the human rights of all citizens of South Africa.

The panel discussion started with a presentation on the pre-1996 perspective by Judge Azar Cachalia of the Supreme Court of Appeal. Judge Cachalia reflected on his role in the realisation and upholding of the constitution, from his days as a student activist, then as an attorney representing detainees during political turmoil, and currently as a judge: “My role as an attorney was to defend people arrested for public violence. My role as a judge today is to uphold the constitution.” He stressed the importance of the constitution today, and the responsibility institutions such as the police service have in upholding human rights. Judge Cachalia played a significant role in drafting the new Police Act around 1990, an Act which was to ensure that the offences perpetrated by the police during apartheid did not continue in the current democratic era. Further, he pointed out that societal turmoil has the potential to make society forget about the hard work that was put into structures upholding human rights. “Constitutions are drafted in moments of calm. It is a living document, and we hope it is not torn up when we go through social conflict, such as we are experiencing at present.”

Thobeka Dywili, a Law student at the UFS, presented her views from the new generation’s perspective. She relayed her experience as a student teaching human rights at schools in disadvantaged communities. She realised that, although the youth are quite aware of their basic human rights, after so many years of democracy, “women and children are still seen as previously disadvantaged when they should be equal”. She pointed out that, with the changing times, the constitution needs to be looked at with a new set of eyes, suggesting more robust youth engagement on topics that affect them, using technology to facilitate discussions. She said with the help of social media, it is possible for a simple discussion to become a revolution; #feesmustfall was a case in point.

Critical perspectives on the constitution were presented by Tsepo Madlingozi of University of Pretoria and University of London. In his view, the constitution has not affected policy to the extent that it should, with great disparities in our society and glaring issues, such as lack of housing for the majority of the poor. “Celebration of the constitution should be muted, as the constitution is based on a decolonisation approach, and does not directly address the needs of the poor. The Constitutional Court is not pro-poor.” He posed the question of whether twenty years on, the present government has crafted a new society successfully. “We have moved from apartheid to neo-apartheid, as black elites assimilate into the white world, and the two worlds that exist have not been able to stand together as a reflection of what the constitution stands for.”

Prof Caroline Nicholson, Dean of the Faculty of Law, encouraged more open discussions, saying such dialogues are exactly what was intended by the Centre for Human Rights. She emphasised the importance of exchanging ideas, of allowing people to speak freely, and of sharing perspectives on important issues such as the constitution and human rights.

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