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New UFS programme to partner with communities in taking charge of their lives during and after COVID-19

17 July 2020 | Story Nitha Ramnath | Photo iStock

community engagement_read more — The UFS initiated a new community engagement programme to help communities take charge of their lives.

The University of the Free State (UFS) is launching a new community engagement programme to help communities take charge of their lives during and after the national lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The E-Community Engagement Programme will run for the duration of the lockdown to ensure that the UFS continues to serve all people. This programme is one of more than 120 community development programmes and projects that the UFS is involved with this year.

Rev Billyboy Ramahlele, Director: Community Engagement, says this strategy is the result of the Institutional Transformation Plan, which seeks to deepen the university’s commitment towards the betterment of our communities by creating sustainable partnerships for development. “This programme is dedicated to assisting communities to take charge of their lives during and after this pandemic and will focus on sustainable livelihoods and family support”, he says.

With these community development programmes and projects, about 3 000 UFS students spend at least 127 000 hours per year engaging in 73 service-learning modules. This excludes the clinical work done by our medical and education students in the community through community-based education and inter-professional learning. The university’s 22 student volunteer associations play an important role in community development projects. Our academics and researchers contribute their intellectual resources through their involvement, teaching, and research in different aspects of community life.

The E-Community Engagement Programme refers to an alternative online/virtual community engagement platform aimed at facilitating continuously negotiated collaborations and partnerships between the UFS and the interest groups that it interacts with, aimed at building and exchanging the knowledge, skills, expertise, and resources required to develop and sustain society. Such alternative engagement stems from adapting physical face-to-face (f2f) community engagement to an e-environment. As a result of the uncertain state of restricted f2f engagement during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus of participation, dialogue, engaged learning, and teaching by university staff and students is on citizens actively participating in the development of their own lives and that of their surrounding communities.

Details of the E-Community Engagement Programme will soon be published on the UFS website, and will be presented on radio and online in partnership with Motheo FM, Mosupatsela FM, Kovsie FM, Mangaung Municipality, Towers of Hope, Princess Gabo Foundation, Rock Foundation, Bloemshelter, and all our faculties.

News Archive

Luvo and Ryk inspire UFS student leaders

2017-10-13

Ryk Neethling and Luvo Manyonga have a special bond.
The sporting duo shared their inspiring stories with student
Leaders of the University of the Free State.
Photo: Kaleidoscope Studios

Dreams can come true and Luvo Manyonga’s story is the perfect example. It would make the ideal movie script. This is opinion of the businessman and former international swimmer Ryk Neethling.

The Olympic gold medallist and former World Champion and Manyonga shared their stories with new student leaders of the University of the Free State (UFS).

“I am so proud of this guy,” Neethling said. “And we are just half-way through this movie. The best is yet to come.” The 26-year-old Manyonga is the current Olympic silver medallist and World Champion in long jump. But he had to overcome huge obstacles as a former tik or crystal meth addict.

Not an easy road
The duo were guests for a session, Inspirational Stories of Lived Humanising Experiences, which was part of the university’s Student Leadership Training weekend for Student Representative Councils, Residence committees, Residence Assistants and Association Representatives in the Economic and Management Sciences Auditorium on the Bloemfontein Campus.

Manyonga, who is dating the Kovsie netball player Khomotso Mamburu, talked about growing up in Mbekweni township in Paarl, about his career and his setbacks.

After finishing fifth at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011 he started partying when he returned home. “I hooked up with the wrong friends and they introduced me to tik,” he said. “They told me: ‘Hey dude, you are drunk. Just take a hit and it will sober you up.’ I took it and it was nice, but that is where it started.”

Be surrounded by positive people
Manyonga lost all his money and his sport was also suffering because of his addiction. “At the beginning of 2014 I started to realise that I was throwing my life away and I needed help. I went to reach out to people close to me and told them I had a problem.” He thanked Neethling, who helped him when he was at his lowest, his mother, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, Tuks Sport and the High Performance Centre where he trains for the influence on his life.

Neethling’s advice to student leaders was to dream big, work hard, expand your network and find a mentor you can learn from.

“Always surround yourself with positive people,” he said. “You can succeed if you stay positive.”

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