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16 September 2020 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Supplied
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Prof Mongane Wally Serote will present the Heritage Day webinar on 23 September 2020.

September is dedicated to heritage celebrations, with the nation celebrating Heritage Day on 24 September. The Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) will collaborate with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and the University of the Western Cape to present a national Heritage Day webinar with Prof Mongane Wally Serote as keynote speaker.

Date: 23 September 2020
Time:12:00
Platform: Webinarjam

Registration is required prior to webinar: 

Prof Serote is widely recognised as the ‘Father of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)’ in South Africa, where he  pioneered research and debate on IKS at national level. Prof Serote is also the National Poet Laureate. Dr Stephanie Cawood, director of CGAS said that Prof Serote is one of South Africa’s struggle and intellectual stalwarts and that his lecture promises “to be insightful and hopeful in a time when we need to reflect on our position as a nation carefully.”

The topic of the webinar is Going to Basics: The Reconstruction and Development Programme of the Source.  “Heritage Day is important to help us reflect on who we are and what we have in common as a people, to focus on what binds us together and not what divides us,” said Dr Cawood

Due to the limitations imposed by government on events as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CGAS had to reinvent what would have been the Africa Day Memorial Lecture. 



About our speaker:

Professor Mongane Wally Serote is the third National Poet Laureate of South Africa inaugurated on November 6, 2018. He is a celebrated poet, author, struggle stalwart, member of the Black Consciousness Movement, Umkhonto we Sizwe commander, pioneer of IKS in South Africa, former MP, and Ngaka (healer). Serote has been awarded national and international accolades, amongst others the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize (1973); the Noma Award (1993); the English Academy of Southern Africa Medal (2003); the Pablo Neruda Award (2004); the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver awarded by President Thabo Mbeki (2007); the prestigious Golden Wreath Award for Poetry (2012), and the Arts and Culture Trust Lifetime Achievement Award (2016). 

Read more about Prof Mongane Wally Serote

 

News Archive

Launch of the Africa office of the IIDE
2006-05-25

Attending the launch of the Africa office of the IIDE were from the left Prof Sytse Strijbos (Chairperson of IIDE Europe), Rev Kiepie Jaftha (Chairperson of the IIDE in Africa’s Board of Directors and Chief Director: Community Service at the UFS) and Prof Frederick Fourie (Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS).

 

Attending the launch were from the left Prof Lucius Botes (Director: Centre of Development Support at the UFS), Dr Samuel Kareithi (Head: Community Development at the Cornerstone Christian College, Cape Town), Rev Kiepie Jaftha (Chairperson of the IIDE in Africa’s Board of Directors and Chief Director: Community Service at the UFS), Prof Sytse Strijbos (Chairperson of IIDE Europe) and Dr Ezekiel Moraka (Vice-Rector:  Student Affairs at the UFS).

Africa office of IIDE launched on UFS main campus 

The Africa office of the International Institute for Development and Ethics (IIDE) was today (26 May 2006) launched on the Main Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein.

“The IIDE specialises in the studying and research of general questions of developmental theory and practices and provides services and support in education, strategic planning, policy formulation, advocacy and capacity building of development agencies,” said Rev Kiepie Jaftha, Chairperson of the IIDE in Africa’s Board of Directors and Chief Director: Community Service at the UFS.

According to Rev Jaftha the IIDE in Africa will focus on the conceptual and normative aspects of developmental processes in Sub-Saharan Africa.  “We want to foster local and international partnerships with various relevant role-players in civil society, the private sector and public sector in the SACD region and later expand our operations to the rest of Africa,” said Rev Jaftha.

The IIDE in Africa cooperates with a similar foundation in Europe, functioning as the IIDE Europe.  This institute was founded in 2003 and its head office is situated in the Netherlands.  The UFS is a funder of the IIDE in Africa together with the Paul Foundation and private sponsors from the Netherlands.

“We have already started with various projects which are in various stages of implementation,” said Rev Jaftha.  Some of these projects include, among others, the broadening of the master’s degree in Christian Studies of Science and Society (MACSSS) which is currently housed at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam to tertiary institutions in South Africa such as the UFS, the University of Stellenbosch and the Potchefstroom Campus of the Northwest University.

“Another project is an investigation into the possibility of initiating a broad development initiative in the poverty stricken Qwaqwa area.  This initiative will attempt to concentrate on issues like the training and empowerment of prospective entrepreneurs in the region, the identification of prospective entrepreneurs for the rendering of development support and the monitoring of the impact of information and communication technology on local communities during the implementation of sustainable development initiatives,” said Rev Jaftha.

“The establishment of the Africa office of the IIDE on the UFS Main Campus is an indication of one of the aims of the UFS to play a role in South Africa and Africa.  It also signifies our aim to contribute meaningfully to research and development and to establish links between the academe and practice,” said Rev Jaftha. 

 

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
26 May 2006

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