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25 November 2020 Photo Anja Aucamp
Prof Colin Chasi outside Centenary Complex (Anja Aucamp)
Prof Colin Chasi is the Director of the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice at the UFS.
The 2020 programme around the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence will be novel in that it will be run online. “For each person to register and log into the various programmes is a small step. But each such step makes a big difference by saying that the lives of survivors matter and by underscoring that gender-based violence will not be tolerated at the UFS,” says Prof Colin Chasi, Director of the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice (UICSJ) at the UFS.

Women and girl children have experienced increased violence in the time of the COVID-19 lockdown, states the UN Secretary General's report, Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity: Responding to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. In South Africa, there have been reports of a scourge of rape in the post-school education and training sector. At the UFS, these developments have challenged the Gender Equity and Anti-Discrimination Office (GEADO) to come up with innovative online interventions.

In 2019, the University of the Free State (UFS) established the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice (formerly known as the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, founded in 2009). The GEADO was launched on 8 April 2019 and was incorporated into the unit to run a cross-functional Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) and to organise programmes that combat gender-based violence and other forms of gender injustice.

“We have been able to offer our services with minimal disruption throughout the year,” says Geraldine Lengau, a Bloemfontein Campus-based GEADO officer.

“Most exciting for us is that we have taken the lockdown as an opportunity to expand the scope of ways in which we engage with students and communities,” notes Chelepe Mocwana, a GEADO officer on the South Campus. “GEADO has offered a number of online webinars and seminars, and the university has made telephonic services available that support, for example, the mental health of survivors of sexual violence.”

“On the Qwaqwa Campus, where we still have some problems with consistent access to data networks, we were pleased to see that our webinars have been well-subscribed to by students and staff members,” reports Siya Magayana, who is the GEADO officer on this campus.

“Each such step makes a big difference by saying that the
lives of survivors matter and by underscoring that
gender-based violence will not be tolerated at the UFS.”
—Prof Colin Chasi, Director of the UICSJ.

Since 1991, activists around the world have annually coordinated activities around the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. The 16 days of activism begin on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and run until 10 December, which is International Human Rights Day. The start and end dates signify that the fight to eliminate violence against women advances human rights for all.

Activities to mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence will be advertised on various UFS communication platforms.

News Archive

Professor’s research part of major global programme
2011-04-04

 

Prof. Zakkie Pretorius, professor in Plant Pathology in the Department of Plant Sciences at our university

Research by Zakkie Pretorius, professor in Plant Pathology in the Department of Plant Sciences at our university, has become part of Phase II of a mayor global project to combat deadly strains of a wheat pathogen that poses a threat to global food security.

Prof. Pretorius focuses on the identification of resistance in wheat to the stem rust disease and will assist breeders and geneticists in the accurate phenotyping of international breeding lines and mapping populations. In addition, Prof. Pretorius will support scientists from Africa with critical skills development through training programmes. During Phase I, which ends in 2011, he was involved in pathogen surveillance in Southern Africa and South Asia.
 
The Department of International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will invest $40 million over the next five years in the global project led by the Cornell University. The project is aimed at combating deadly strains of Ug99, an evolving wheat pathogen that is a dangerous threat to global food security, especially in the poorest nations. 
 
The Cornell University said in a statement, the grant made to the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) project at Cornell will support efforts to identify new stem-rust resistant genes in wheat, improve surveillance, and multiply and distribute rust-resistant wheat seed to farmers and their families.
 
Researchers worldwide will be able to play an increasingly vital role in protecting wheat fields from dangerous new forms of stem rust, particularly in countries whose people can ill afford the economic impact of damage to this vital crop.
 
The Ug99 strain was discovered in Kenya in 1998, but are now also threatening major wheat-growing areas of Southern and Eastern Africa, the Central Asian Republics, the Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, South America, Australia and North America.
 
Prof. Pretorius was responsible for the first description of this strain in 1999.
 
Among Cornell’s partners are national research centres in Kenya and Ethiopia, and scientists at two international agricultural research centres that focus on wheat, the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (known by its Spanish acronym as CIMMYT), and the International Center  for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in Syria. Advanced research laboratories in the United States, Canada, China, Australia, Denmark and South Africa also collaborate on the project. The DRRW project now involves more than 20 leading universities and research institutes throughout the world, and scientists and farmers from more than 40 countries.


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

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