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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

Pauline Gutter’s metaphorical representations of South Africa
2016-04-07

Description: Thamsanqa Malgas Tags: Thamsanqa Malgas

Art student, Thamsanqa Malgas views the Purgatorium exhibition at the Stegmann Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus (UFS).
Photo: Rethabile Isaacs

Purgatory is a temporary condition of torment or suffering. This is the central thread of the renowned artist’s exhibition, Purgatorium, at the University of the Free State (UFS). Pauline Gutter’s exhibition was opened by Harry Siertsema on 9 March 2016 at the Stegmann Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus.

The artist, who grew up on a farm in the Free State, is influenced by animals and farm life. “My work is on many levels a metaphorical representation of the violence of current South Africa. Some people want to move away from stigma, others adopt hysteria. The impressive yet vulnerable bulk of the bulls depicted in uncomfortable positions manifests the voiceless and powerless generation of food producers in their daily struggles for survival,” she wrote in the catalogue of the exhibition.

Prof Dirk van den Berg of the UFS Department of History of Art and Image Studies wrote an essay about the exhibition, in which he captures the lived endurance of stress and suffering which Pauline Gutter depicts vividly in Purgatorium.

“The paintings, drawings, and prints in this exhibition have, in various ways, the effect of disseminating the basic tenor of the weaning metaphor of struggle for survival into the farming domains of the land, its creatures, and its people,” said Prof van den Berg.

Art student, Thamsanqa Malgas, was very impressed with the exhibition, saying that it was a fascinating collection, and a must-see for art lovers. The exhibition closed on 1 April 2016.

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