Latest News Archive
Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
17 June 2020
|
Story Dr WP Wahl
The Division of Student Affairs (DSA) prioritises innovation to meet the challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition among students. To this end, several student volunteers and student governance structures are collaborating with the DSA on various initiatives.
During 2019, various conversations were held about the possibility of creating a health-promoting food environment at the UFS where students and staff are well informed and empowered to take appropriate action regarding their food and nutritional needs. These conversations resulted in an institutional strategy to address the food environment at the UFS. Student representatives serve on a technical committee that directs the implementation of this strategy. In this regard, several initiatives have already been launched.
Students from residences and other student communities have planted vegetable gardens on the Bloemfontein Campus with the assistance of KovsieACT and the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. Students and staff are already harvesting and distributing vegetables to needy students every week. Measurements were put in place to continue this during the COVID-19 period. The following vegetables were planted: spinach, cabbage, beetroot, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.
Food parcels, donated by Tiger Brands and Gift of the Givers, are continuously handed out by DSA staff and student volunteers. In this regard, 540 food parcels have already been handed out on the Bloemfontein Campus during the COVID-19 period alone. During the same time, 117 students received food parcels on the Qwaqwa Campus. The innovation of this food parcel project rests on the fact that business, NPOs, UFS students, and DSA staff are collaborating to address food insecurity and malnutrition.
More collaborative initiatives will be implemented over the next 12 months. The DSA staff and students are already working with the Department of Dietetics and Consumer Sciences to create information packages about the preparation of low-budget nutritious meals.
Related article:
Vegetable tunnels established to continue the fight against food insecurity
Education students attend course in maths and science
2008-11-11
 |
Twenty five intermediate and students in the further education and training phase from the School of Education at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently completed a Family Math and Family Science programme, presented by the Centre for Education Development (CED). The students did the programme in order to complete the practical component of their community-service learning module. In order to qualify, each student, in addition to the contact sessions, also had to organise and present one Family Math and one Family Science community workshop. The training was sponsored by Old Mutual. Here are, from the left: Ms Lorraine Botha, Programme Facilitator at CED, Ms Elizna Prinsloo, Project Co-ordinator at CED, Tsehla Tsiboho, student, Maurese Myburgh, Kenyaditswe Maele, Megan Keyzer and Chin-Wen Tsai, all students from the School of Education at the UFS.
Photo: Stephen Collett |