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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

Two degrees in three years for former teacher
2013-12-17

Jacqui Middleton

When Jacqui Middleton entered university in 2011, she did so alongside her daughter, both women enrolling for their first-year studies at the University of the Free State. Three years later and the mother of three have completed two degrees – a double feat achieved with distinction.

Middleton, a former teacher, will receive a BA degree in Corporate and Marketing Communications at the April 2014 graduation ceremony and a master’s degree in Sustainable Agriculture at the June graduation ceremony. With these two qualifications in the bag, Middleton will pursue her studies with a BCom Honours degree next year, as well as a PhD degree in Sustainable Agriculture.

“It was my first full-time studies since 1988,” says Middleton. “I was a teacher for 22 years and my husband kept saying that I needed to get out of the classroom and into the corporate world. I was reluctant because I was so passionate about education and my children were still at school.”

Things changed when Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, visited the Ikanyegeng Primary and High School in Jacobsdal – where she was a teacher – to deliver a motivational talk. Middleton approached Prof Jansen about a bursary. The next year, with the support of her family, she moved to Bloemfontein and stayed on campus studying for two degrees.

“For me it was a major step of faith because we were relying on my salary and I had to give that up to study, so we had to believe there is something bigger beyond the three-year period.”

Something bigger definitely awaited. Her study record of the last three years reflects a dedicated student who passed most of her subjects with marks higher than 80%. 

With her new qualification, Middleton will follow a career in agriculture and farming with her husband. ”I am still passionate about education, but now I am passionate about educating farmers to assist with the land reform process. Land reform is crucial for food security in our country and at the moment we need more success stories of black farmers moving from emerging to commercial farming. I believe that whatever you studied in life should not be wasted.”

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