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17 June 2020 | Story Dr WP Wahl
Students play leading role to ensure food security

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

News Archive

Faculty of Law bids farewell to Prof. Andries Raath
2012-11-27

Prof. Andries Raath and some of his colleagues during his farewell held in the Bobbert Room of the CR Swart Building. From the left are: Prof. Loot Pretorius, Dr Ilse Keevy, Prof. Andries Raath, Prof. Johan Henning and Prof. Gerhard Fick.
Photo: Christiaan van der Merwe
27 November 2012


The Faculty of Law had to bid farewell to another stalwart in Prof. Andries Raath last week. Prof. Raath retired after more than 30 years of service to the university.  Prof. Johan Henning, Dean of the Faculty of Law, described it as a day of “great personal sadness” due to the loss of a person who had made such a tremendous impact in the faculty, both at a personal and an academic level.

Prof. Raath was praised for his academic prowess and relationship with students who referred to him as a “real professor”, and doctoral students who often saw him as a father figure. For his part, the avid Anglo-Boer War buff thanked long-time as well as newer colleagues, whom he said had all left an imprint on him in some way or another.  He urged his former colleagues to maintain the “precious academic heritage” of the faculty, in which his personal career also had numerous highlights.

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