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20 September 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Stephen Collett
Send off
The spirited #UFSRun4MentalHealth runners at the send-off ceremony yesterday morning. From left; Nico Piedt, with the baton of hope; Justin Coetzee, Brenda Coetzee, and Teboho Rampheteng.



#UFSRun4MentalHealth team, sponors and support staff

#UFSRun4MentalHealth team, sponsors and support staff. Photo:Stephen Collett

The #UFSRun4MentalHealth awareness runners have hit the road. The 21-member team from the Faculty of Health Sciences and Organisational Development at the University of the Free State (UFS) had a send-off ceremony yesterday, 20 September 2019, on their running journey to Stellenbosch University (SU) to raise awareness for #MentalHealth. The teams will run a distance of 1 075 km. 

“The two causes emphasised by this run are very much embedded in what the university stands for. One of the key priorities is the safety and well-being of our staff and students,” said Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, during the send-off this morning.
 
The route is as follows: Bloemfontein, Jagersfontein, Fauresmith, Luckhoff, Vanderkloof, Petrusville, Phillipstown, De Aar, Britstown, Victoria West, Loxton, Fraserburg, Sutherland, Ceres, Wellington, and finally Stellenbosch University.

There will be a symbolic hand-over of the baton of hope to SU on 25 September 2019 at 13:00 at the Coetzenburg Stadium. The baton of hope that the team will carry is a symbol of hope for those suffering from a mental disorder.

Join their journey on our social-media platforms and follow the events with #UFSRun4MentalHealth #YourStoryIsNotOverYet

The sponsors of this initiative are BestMed, Standard Bank, Shell, Annique Health and Beauty, Xerox, Bidvest Car Rental, Media24, Kloppers, New Balance, Clover, Futurelife, Mylan, Pharma Dynamics, and the SA Society of Psychiatrists.


#UFSRun4MentalHealth #YourStoryIsNotOverYet #MentalHealth

News Archive

DiMTEC and insurance industry join forces to address the vulnerability of communal and commercial farmers
2015-09-18

At the workshop on index-based insurance for the
agricultural sector were, from the left:
Dr Andries Jordaan, Johan van den Bergh,
Bertus Kruger and Henk Vermeulen.

The United Nations identified climate resilience as a major focus for future development to ensure a safer world for all. Tailor-made insurance and financial products ought to address the needs of the most vulnerable.

Recent research done by the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC) at the University of the Free State on the vulnerability of communal and commercial farmers to external shocks highlighted the importance of insurance as an important disaster risk transfer tool. Insurance is generally unavailable to most vulnerable groups, such as communal farmers, small-holding farmers, and new commercial farmers.

For these reasons, DiMTEC invited the insurance industry and other experts to a workshop with the purpose of investigating the development of risk transfer products, especially for drought. They were the hosts of a workshop entitled “Global Resilience through Insurance and Index-Based Risk Transfer Products (IBRTP)”.

Bertus Kruger from Agriseker and Johan van der Berg from SANTAM, together with other experts, attended the workshop facilitated by Dr Andries Jordaan, Head of DiMTEC.

The group attending the workshop, agreed on the following:

- Establishing a UFS-DiMTEC-led research team to investigate the feasibility of index insurance products.
- Mobilising government support to develop risk transfer products for the most vulnerable.
- Initiating forum discussions on risk transfer products.
- Promoting collaboration between the private sector, government, and research institutions with the focus on resilience-building through financial and insurance products.

 

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