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02 September 2019 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo Thabo Kessah
Eunice Lebona
Eunice Lebona sees herself as a ‘perfectionist procrastinator.’

She is literally the beginning and the end of students’ academic careers on the Qwaqwa Campus, as she welcomes each one of them with an application form when they arrive and ensures that they enjoy their moment in the Rolihlahla Mandela Hall when they graduate. She says she derives all the pleasure and creativity from ‘last-minute crunch’. For those who have interacted with her, she epitomises excellence in the execution of her duties, but many would not know that she is a procrastinator. 

She is Eunice Lebona, Assistant Director: Student Academic Services.

Childhood lesson

‘Ausi Eunice’, as she is affectionately known, credits her grandmother for valuing accountability, her most prized childhood lesson.

“My grandmother raised me and as the oldest grandchild, I learnt the value of accountability at an early age; this has been the cornerstone of my life and career.  Although it is valuable to have support around you, standing on your own two feet is critical, because you will not know when that support might not be available,” she said. 

Working with students comes naturally to her, as she is inspired by progression and achievement.

Personal inspiration

“Getting to higher echelons than previous accomplishments, is my inspiration.  My successes are energisers to achieve the next steps on unique and distinctly different notes than the previous ones. It is this same notion that builds my view, that – as the University of the Free State – we need to see women representation in leadership on a greater scale, as well as respect for their spaces of delivery.”

When asked about the one thing that very few people knew about her, she said: 
“I am a procrastinator. In fact, I am a perfectionist procrastinator. Although procrastination is not good, the last-minute crunch is stimuli to ideas that I would normally not dream of in my comfort mode,” Lebona insists.

What is success?

She defines success as “inner gratification which is the result of the outcomes I had to deliver on”.  She adds: “Witnessing the success and motivation of others from the small contributions I have made in their lives, is all the success that resonates with me. Respect and humility go a long way in attaining success. As indicated earlier, my grandmother played a crucial role in my upbringing and instilled in me the philosophy entrenched in Luke 6:31 that says: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ That has been my motto since her passing away”.

News Archive

UFS hosts consortium to discuss broadening subcontinent’s food base
2017-03-14

Description: Cactus Tags: Cactus

The Steering Committee of the Collaborative
Consortium for Broadening the Food Base comprises,
from the left: Prof Wijnand Swart (UFS),
Dr Sonja Venter (ARC) and Dr Eric Amonsou (DUT).
Photo: Andrè Grobler

There is huge pressure on the agricultural industry in southern Africa to avert growing food insecurity. One of the ways to address this is to broaden the food base on the subcontinent via crop production. Climate change, urbanisation, population growth, pests and diseases continually hamper efforts to alleviate food insecurity. Furthermore, our dependence on a few staple crops such as maize, wheat, potatoes, and sunflower, serve to exacerbate food insecurity.  

Broadening the food base  
To address broadening the food base in southern Africa, scientists from the University of the Free State (UFS), the Durban University of Technology (DUT) and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) have formed a Collaborative Consortium for the development of underutilised crops by focusing on certain indigenous and exotic crops. The Consortium met at the UFS this week for two days (6, 7 March 2017) to present and discuss their research results. The Principal Investigator of the Consortium, Prof Wijnand Swart of the Department of Plant Sciences in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, said awareness had risen for the need to rescue and improve the use of orphan crops that were up to now, for the most part, left aside by research, technological development, and marketing systems.  

"Many indigenous southern African
plant grains, vegetables and tubers
have the potential to provide a variety
of diets and broaden the household
food base.”

Traditional crops Generally referred to as alternative, traditional or niche crops, five crops are being targeted by the Consortium, namely, two grain legumes, (Bambara groundnut and cowpea), amaranthus (leaf vegetable), cactus pear or prickly pear and amadumbe (a potato-like tuber). Swart said these five crops would play an important role in addressing the food and agricultural challenges of the future. “Many indigenous southern African plant grains, vegetables and tubers have the potential to provide a variety of diets and broaden the household food base.” The potential of the many so-called underutilised crops lies not only in their hardiness and nutritional value but in their versatility of utilisation. "It may be that they contain nutrients that can be explored to meet the demand for functional foods," said Swart.

Scientific institutions working together
The Collaborative Consortium between the three scientific institutions is conducting multi-disciplinary research to develop crop value chains for the five underutilised crops mentioned above. The UFS and ARC are mainly involved in looking at production technologies for managing crop environments and genetic technologies for crop improvement. The DUT is focusing on innovative products development and market development.  

 

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