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22 September 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Anja Aucamp
Every year, several of our staff and students are involved in projects in our community to make a positive difference. One of the projects where we are making a difference is at Bloemshelter.

I am because you are. Ubuntu. What better month do we have to celebrate our Ubuntu, our South Africanness, than September – Heritage Month. 

South Africans are known for their warm and generous spirit, their humanity. Closer to home, here at the University of the Free State, this is also a reality. 

Bettering the lives of others

Numerous staff members and students engage in community projects and partnerships. “As a regionally engaged university, the UFS supports development and social justice through the practice of engaged scholarship,” says Karen Venter, Head of the Division: Service Learning within the Directorate of Community Engagement.

Engaged scholarship occurs at the heart of community-university partnerships in close and co-operative interaction with several organisations in broader society for the common public good.

A few of the flagship partnership projects that come to mind are Bloemshelter (caring for the homeless and developing as a social enterprise); Towers of Hope (caring for the vulnerable and transforming the city); and the Princess Gabo Foundation (in Thaba ‘Nchu, where they obtained a zero teenage pregnancy rate in school with a simulating doll-parenting programme to initiate responsible reproductive health education). 

In Qwaqwa, Community Engagement partnerships involve the Itemoheleng Soy Project and the AGAPE Foundation for Community Development. Here, the development focuses on nutrition to boost people’s immune systems – especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Moodi Matsoso from the Directorate: Community Engagement on our Qwaqwa Campus, the AGAPE Foundation is manufacturing rosehip juice, which helps with digestion and the healing of ulcers. 

Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, Director of Community Engagement, is also passionate about sharing knowledge and skills regarding enterprise development to others, supporting them to reach their full potential with the building of tiny houses. 

According to him, an estimated 3 000 of our students are spending at least 127 000 hours per year engaging in the community through 73 academic service-learning modules, excluding the engagement of student organisations such as the Enactus UFS and co-curricular KOVSIE ACT (Active Civic Teaching) residential schools projects.

Vegetables for the food insecure

Another project that is making a difference not only in the lives of our students, but also for food-insecure families, is the UFS Community Garden Project. 

Kovsie ACT, in collaboration with Student Affairs and the university’s Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Rural Development and Extension (CENSARDE), is running a project where they provide fresh vegetables, including cabbage, carrots, beetroot, kale, and peas to food-insecure families. 

Heritage Month is an ideal opportunity for everyone to show their Ubuntu spirit. Get involved and share some of your time, your talents, and your treasures to improve the lives of others.  There are several causes in Bloemfontein and Phuthaditjhaba that need support (clothes, food, blankets, toys, funding). 

You saw what some of our colleagues and students are doing. What are you doing to make a difference in communities?

- See Mandala Day poster for a complete list of the partnerships, programmes, and projects where our university’s Directorate of Community Engagement is making a difference. 

News Archive

Quantity Surveying celebrates many firsts
2014-10-20

 

From the left are: Pierre Oosthuizen, Prof Kajimo-Shakantu and Dr Stephan Ramabodu
Photo: Ifa Tshishonge



The Department of Quantity Surveying at the University of the Free State (UFS) has much to be proud of. With Prof Kahilu Kajimo-Shakantu as Head of the Department of Quantity Surveying, the department is celebrating several firsts.

For the first time, the department has four academics with PhDs. This includes Prof Kajimo-Shakantu, Dr Stephan Ramabodu, Dr Timothy Froise and Dr Benita Zulch. It is also the first time that this department is managed by a woman.

Furthermore, the Department of Quantity Surveying has performed very well at this year’s national Quantity Surveying Conference held in Pretoria, where they walked away with four of the seven awards.

The awards were:

•    Best presenter: Pierre Oosthuizen (lecturer)
•    Most innovative presenter: Pierre Oosthuizen (lecturer)
•    Best paper on engineering projects: Prof Kahilu Kajimo-Shakantu
•    Best academic paper: T Monyane (postgraduate student) and Dr Stephan Ramabodu (lecturer)

The South African Council for the Quantity Surveying Profession (SACQSP) also presented two prestigious life achievement awards. One of these were bestowed upon Prof Basie Verster from the UFS for his contribution to quantity surveying since the 1970s.

The university is especially proud of Dr Stephen Ramabodu, lecturer in the Department of Quantity Surveying, who completed his PhD this year. This makes of him the highest qualified quantity surveyor in the department and one of only a few holders of a quantity surveying PhD in the country. Dr Ramabodu is also registered with the South African Council for Quantity Surveying Professionals.

Prof Kajimo-Shakantu said the following of Dr Ramabodu. “Since 2002, Stephan was appointed as a lecturer in a programme called Grow Your Own Timber at the UFS. Later on, he went to Cape Town to gain some commercial experience, where he worked for Davis Langdon in 2005. In 2008, he returned to the Free State, where he established Ramabodu & Associates. Later on in the same year, he returned to the UFS as a lecturer to complete all the remaining milestones of the Grow Your Own Timber programme.

“The university looks forward to Stephen’s increased responsibilities and contributions, not only in teaching and learning, but also in research, mentoring and community engagement.”


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