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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

Prestige scholar, Oliver Mutanga, to continue research at University of Pavia through CICOPS scholarship
2014-12-19

 

Oliver Mutanga has been awarded a 2015 CICOPS scholarship – one of only ten researchers world-wide to be afforded this opportunity. The scholarship enables Mutanga to visit the University of Pavia in Italy from January to March next year to expand his research.

As a second-year PhD student taking part in the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestige Scholars Programme, Mutanga is well on his way to achieve his goal of becoming an internationally-recognised scholar. He is currently conducting his research at our Centre for Research on Higher Education and Development under the supervision of Prof Melanie Walker and Dr Lis Lange. In his PhD, Mutanga examines the processes through which disabled students make their educational choices and negotiate different socio-cultural and institutional structures in higher education.

During his stay in Italy, Mutanga will work with Prof Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti on the intersectionality of disability, disadvantage and other social variables. “I will also present lectures and seminars on my PhD work at Pavia University and meet with other young capabilities approach scholars,” Mutanga says.

There is a growing acknowledgement nationally and internationally that there is limited data and understanding of the framing on disability issues. As such, data on the experiences of disabled students in higher education is important and timely in preparation of the Post 2015 Development Agenda.

Mutanga’s preliminary analysis challenges the popular discourse that is so common in South African higher education debates that they receive unprepared students into their institutions. The data seems to indicate the opposite, though: that it might be the institutions that are underprepared to receive diverse students. The study advocates for a capabilities-based conception of student equity that focuses on the widening of opportunities for all students within higher education to pursue what they have reason to value.

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