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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

'Physical education at school level important,' says Minister
2010-09-16

At the conference were, from the left: Monique de Milander, Prof. Johan Bloemhoff, Rev. Makhenkesi Stofile, Emile Langeveld and Riaan Schoeman.

A record number of four staff members from the Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) presented papers at the South African Sport and Recreation Conference (SASreCon). This conference was presented by Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) from the National Department of Sport and Recreation. This is South Africa’s primary national conference on sport and exercise science.

The conference, that was hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban with the theme Sport, Recreation and Physical Education – An Essential Triad, highlighted the important triangular relationship between sports science, recreation and physical education. A host of leading South African and international speakers presented papers on key topics that are relevant to the South African sports and exercise landscape.

The four staff members who attended also had the opportunity to meet the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Rev. Makhenkesi Stofile. The Minister reiterated the importance of physical education at school level to ensure that South Africa can compete against the best in the world at stadiums such as the iconic Moses Mabhida Stadium, where the function was hosted.
 

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