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17 June 2020 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Supplied
Food parcels
Annelize Visagie (Food Environment Office, with the black mask), Belinda Janeke (Career Services) and Angelo Mockie (Art, Culture and Dialogue Office) from the Division Student Affairs (DSA) busy preparing food parcels in the storeroom at the Thakaneng Bridge
Between 40 and 50 students from the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein receive daily food parcels during the lockdown, thanks to the cooperation between the Food Environment Office at the UFS, Tiger Brands, and the Total Garage in Brandwag.

Annelize Visagie from the Division of Student Affairs (DSA), who is heading the Food Environment Office at the UFS, says just before the national lockdown started in March, they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Tiger Brands to sponsor 500 food parcels to students who do not have bursaries. This is part of the UFS strategic goal of improving student success and wellbeing. UFS staff is working hard to implement initiatives and obtain sponsorships – such as this one with Tiger Brands – as well as food donations to ensure that students do not go hungry.

“Then the lockdown happened. However, the project continued, with Tiger Brands still sponsoring food parcels. Students email me and I respond to those emails. We are also looking at including students from the South Campus in the project.”

“I deliver the food parcels to the Total Garage across from the campus, where students collect it. We give between 40 and 50 parcels every day and have helped 650 students thus far. These parcels cost Tiger Brands R80 000 a month. We also provide students with vegetables from vegetable tunnels on campus,” says Visagie.

Visagie says the cooperation between the outside companies, the UFS, and even staff and students who volunteer, is heart-warming to see especially during this time of crisis. So is the gratitude from the students. They are also in discussions with the humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers to provide 200 food parcels to needy students from next month.

“We have a supply chain going on in the storeroom at the Thakaneng Bridge. It is great to see how staff members and students jumped in to help us pack the parcels. We have permits and more students want to help, but they can’t get onto campus at this time. We would not be able to do this without the help of Tiger Brands and the Total Garage.”  

The DSA Food Environment Office is also collaborating with senior management on the UFS Qwaqwa and South campuses to distribute food parcels on these two campuses.

News Archive

Standing ovation for the UFS Camerata in St Petersburg, Russia
2013-11-26

 
Jan Moritz Onken conducting the Camerata during their performance at the 13th International Conservatoire in St Petersburg, Russia.

The OSM CAMERATA (OSMC), flagship ensemble of the University of the Free State’s Odeion School of Music, received a standing ovation during a gala concert at the 13th International Conservatoire Festival presented on 7 November 2013 in the Glazunov Hall under the baton of Maestro Jan Moritz Onken.

The International Conservatory Festival was founded in 2001 by the St Petersburg Rimsky Korsakov Conservatory and has since then become an annual highlight on the concert calendar of St Petersburg.

For the last thirteen years, the festival has developed as a centre of excellence for artists, lecturers, and music experts who represent higher institutions of music from almost every continent. This forum has introduced more than 200 conservatories internationally, and literally produced hundreds of concerts, master’s classes and lectures. Internationally-acclaimed musicians such as Yuri Temirkanov, Rodion Shchedrin, Saulius Sondeckis, Krzysztof Penderecki, Valery Gergiev, Vasily Sinaisky and Semyon Bychkov, as well as young talented performers on the brink of their international careers, have participated in the festival over the years.

The OSMC presented the artistic director of the festival, Prof Lydia Volcheck, with audio-visual material as an audition and received a formal invitation from Prof Mikhail Gantvarg, Rector of the St Petersburg Rimsky Korsakov Conservatoire, in May 2013. Jan Moritz Onken (who was appointed as the OSMC chief conductor and artistic director for 2012) prepared the ensemble with vigour and discipline. Experienced international OSM alumni and several young international professionals served as mentors throughout the year preceding the event.

The OSMC gave two recitals during the festival – a gala performance in the Glazunov Hall, as well as a concert in the St Petersburg White Hall. For the first concert on 7 November (entitled FOUR CONTINENTS FESTIVAL), the OSMC shared the stage with a piano duo from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music (Katowice, Poland), the String Quartet of the Colburn Conservatory of Music (Los Angeles, USA), as well as an ensemble of Japanese Traditional Instruments from the Tokyo University of the Arts (Japan).

After the last reverberating notes of the performance of the Phantom Waltz (a work commissioned by the OSM from the South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr), a thunderous applause and shouts of bravo exploded! The OSMC responded spontaneously with a kwela improvisation as an encore.

Dagbreek broadcast: http://bit.ly/1evTgR3

 

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