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17 July 2020 | Story Nitha Ramnath | Photo iStock
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

Different religions introduced at UFS forum
2010-08-18

 
Mr Ronnie Rosen, leader of the Jewish community in Bloemfontein.

The Inter-Religious Forum (IRF) of the Faculty of Theology at the University of the Free State (UFS) has started a discussion series which offer the opportunity to different religions to introduce themselves. According to Rev. Maniraj Sukdaven from the Department of Religion Studies at the UFS, the purpose of the discourse series is to get to know more about one another’s religion within an atmosphere of respect.

During the last IRF meeting, Mr Ronnie Rosen, leader of the Jewish community in Bloemfontein, gave a talk about the Jewish religion. According to him there is a wide range of Jewish people.

“The one thing, however, that all Jewish people have in common is the Torah or Law-Book. There are 613 instructions that help a Jewish person to organise his life according to the Jewish way of life. For example, a Jewish person who wants to obey the Torah would not consume dairy products and protein together. This life style is not only regarded as a religion, but a way of life, which constantly makes a person aware of his relationship with God,” he explained.

Another interesting fact that transpired during the discussion was that, for the first time in the history of the world, there are more Jews in Israel than in other concentrated areas across the world. Five (5) million Jews are currently living in Israel, while the remaining 10 million Jews are spread across the world.

During the meeting of the IRF forum, persons from amongst others the Baha’i, Hindu and Christian religions participated in the discussion. Other religions that have already been discussed are Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Rastafarians.

The IRF will also be involved in the structuring of course material about the different religions and an inter-religious conference will be part of the IRF’s programme in 2011.

The IRF is the only institution of its kind at South African universities.



 

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