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The Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) and the UFS will host an Africa Day Webinar on the topic, Reflections on Africa amidst Covid-19, to be delivered by Prof. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, renowned decolonial scholar. The title of his lecture is Revisiting the African idea of Africa during the moment of Covid-19 pandemic.
The crisis delivered by Coronavirus and Covid-19 invites Africans to rethink and even unthink the long-standing dependency on Europe and North America for help. What has dawned on Africa is the equally long-standing aspiration of self-reliance. What is emerging is a new African idea of Africa which takes responsibility for its own challenges. This new African idea of Africa challenges the Mudimbean idea of Africa embodied in the colonial library.
Thus this presentation reassesses how Africa has relied on its own historical experience, its own knowledge, and own people to confront Covid-19. What is of interest here is the proverbial wisdom of necessity being the source of invention. The presentation brings to the fore the decolonial turn as it gestures beyond crisis into post-Covid-19 world order. It ends with a call for decolonial love founded on new ethics of living together and new economies of care.
Bio of Prof Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatshen
Date: Tuesday, 26 May, 2020
Time: 14:00
Duration: 90 min max (45 min talk, 45 min Q&A)
The webinar can be accessed via one of the following links:
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Architecture students take part in competition
2006-06-01
Three groups of third-year architecture students from the University of the Free State (UFS) were amongst the 21 groups from all over the country who participated in the national Des Baker Competition. The competition was held at the Tshwane University of Technology. The students had to look at specific needs of buildings in rural communities and the project also had to be a catalyst for community development.
Here is one of the groups with a scale model of projects suggested for the UFS Paradys Experimental Farm outside Bloemfontein. The projects comprise of the building of ablution blocks for the existing houses to new single quarters and a small community centre. In front from the left are Jonathan Marais and Charles de Jager. At the back from the left are Ms Petria Jooste-Smit (lecturer at the UFS Department of Architecture), Prof Herman van Schalkwyk (Dean: Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS) and Ms Amanda Smith (from the UFS Paradys Experimental Farm). Photo: Lacea Loader