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Students play leading role to ensure food security

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.

News Archive

UFS receives an award from the World Universities Forum

2011-01-11

The University of the Free State (UFS) has received the World Universities Forum (WUF) Award for Best Practice in Higher Education during 2010.

The Best Practice Award recognises the most significant practices of the year around the world. The UFS’s implementation of a number of interlocking innovations to transform the institution is recognised with the award.

These innovations include:

campus-wide racial integration among students;
the reinvigoration of the academic culture;
the nurturing of the most promising young scholars by means of the Vice-Chancellor's Prestige Young Scholars Programme;
sending 71 first-year students to top American universities to assist with their development into non-racial campus leaders;
the revision of the undergraduate curriculum to promote a cross-disciplinary approach to key societal problems;
raising the entry requirements;
the facilitation of open access to campus leadership through sessions with the Vice-Chancellor and Rector, Prof. Jonathan Jansen – providing opportunities for public discussion between senior leadership, staff and students;
the UFS also extended this spirit of dialogue internationally through the inauguration of its International Advisory Council consisting of key thinkers and practitioners;
the identification of 20 of the most dysfunctional high schools in the Free State Province and the building of relationships with those schools. This university-school partnership is based on a strict contract of reciprocal commitments to increase the chances of black children attending university. The WUF applauded this as the most innovative step.

“We at the UFS are humbled, but encouraged by the recognition of academic excellence and institutional transformation that comes with this prestigious international award,” said Prof. Jansen.

The WUF said in a statement that these innovations demonstrate the profound impact higher education practices can have when they are well conceived and implemented. “We applaud these innovations and the ways in which they promote racial harmony, student success and overall academic vitality,” the statement reads.

The Best Practice Award will be announced formally at this year’s World Universities Forum, which will be held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education from 14-16 January 2011.

A message of appreciation from Prof. Jansen will be read by Prof. Fazal Rizvi, Programme Convenor of the WUF 2011 during the award ceremony.

Media Release
10 January 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (actg)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za

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