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
African values important for transformation, says deputy minister
2007-11-06
The Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Enver Surty, says real transformation in education cannot take place if African values and belief systems are not put at the centre of educational practices.
Mr Surty was speaking last night at the launch of the Centre for Africa Studies at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein.
According to the Deputy Minister of Education, the launch of the Centre for Africa Studies at the University of the Free State shows a strong commitment by the university to transformation.
“It shows the readiness on the part of the institution to create and consolidate space for African epistemologies as a way of reclaiming our African identity”, Mr Surty said.
He said the launch provided all stakeholders with a golden opportunity to influence curriculum development in schools so that it better reflects the understanding and the desire to learn more about Africa. He said this cannot happen without a sound knowledge produced by Africans, which can then be shared with the rest of humanity.
“It is no longer tenable that African scholars should take a back seat and merely consume, often uncritically, knowledge systems that have been produced and sifted through other minds. Similarly, our intellectual pursuits cannot take place in isolation. Indeed our fountains of knowledge could only be deepened with more exposure to, and critical engagement with other systems of knowledge across the world”, he said.
According to the Director of the Africa Studies Programme at the UFS, Prof Phillip Nel, the Centre for Africa Studies will focus on the issues and challenges of Africa and make the context of Africa a part of the UFS’s academic activities in a sustained and innovative way.
The centre will closely co-operate and liaise with prominent African initiatives and structures like the African Union, Pan-African Parliament, Southern African Development Community (SADC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and many others.
Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@mail.ufs.ac.za