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20 April 2021 | Story Cornelius Hagenmeier

On 25 May 2021, Africa will celebrate the 58th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). A central tenet of the organisation, which was the predecessor of the African Union (AU), is African solidarity. This call celebrates the idea and the ideal of African solidarity. As we are preparing for Africa Month 2021, we received the shocking news about the damage to the University of Cape Town’s African Studies collection. The need for African solidarity to mitigate this immense loss has inspired the theme of the 2021 UFS virtual Africa Month celebration, ‘solidarity in knowledge production and recording’.

From the establishment of the OAU and with the later formation of the AU, member states undertook to coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the people of Africa.

Africa Day Memorial Lecture

The UFS has a long tradition of commemorating Africa Day and the ideas underpinning it. Every year, diverse events aimed at advancing African unity and solidarity take place during Africa Month –traditionally, the highlight is the Africa Day Memorial Lecture hosted by the University's Centre for Gender and Africa Studies. On 19 May 2021 at 19:00 (SAST), Prof Walter D Mignolo, a guru of decoloniality, will virtually deliver this year’s lecture titled The beauty of the sovereign people: Jean Casimir and the Decolonial History of Haiti, to honour the memory of transatlantic slavery by reflecting on former ambassador, Prof Jean Casimir, who has shifted the geography of reasoning by breaking the code of the standard history of the slave trade, the African diaspora in the Caribbean, and of captive human beings in the plantations. The discussant will be CGAS Extraordinary Professor and Professor of Epistemologies of the Global South at the University of Bayreuth, Prof Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni.  

As COVID-19 continues to ravage the world, Africans have been fighting against the pandemic in various ways and have achieved considerable success in this regard. Given the economic and social challenges associated with the pandemic, fostering African solidarity and further developing the underpinning philosophy of ubuntu appear to be particularly worthwhile projects.

A virtual celebration of Africa Month

The UFS 2021 Africa Month commemorations will again take a virtual format. It will include a focus on UFS engagement on the continent, partnerships with other African institutions, research excellence, and student success stories.  The UFS invites all members of its community to contribute thought-provoking pieces to this virtual celebration of Africa Month. Selected contributions will be presented on the university's website and social media.

Among other formats, contributions may take the format of

  • recorded performing art performances (e.g., solo music or poetry);
  • virtual visual art presentations;
  • written poetry;
  • songs;
  • short thought/opinion pieces, which can also be published in mainstream media; or
  • topical academic writings.

Please share a brief written proposal explaining your planned contribution by 30 April 2021. The proposal should not exceed 300 words and should be emailed to Cornelius Hagenmeier (hagenmeiercca@ufs.ac.za) or Prof Colin Chasi (ChasiCT@ufs.ac.za).

News Archive

Horse-riding therapy improves self-confidence in children
2016-05-10


This group of Honours students in Psychology at the University of the Free State was honoured with the best postgraduate Service Learning award at the prize-giving function of the Faculty of the Humanities. From the left are Adriana de Vries, Hershel Meyerowitz, Simoné le Roux, Wijbren Nell, Melissa Taljaard, and Gerán Lordan. Photo: Marizanne Cloete.

Horse-riding therapy helps to improve self-confidence in children, and changes their perception of themselves. It puts them in a totally new environment where they can be free of any judgement.

According to Wijbren Nell, who achieved his Honours degree in Psychology at the University of the Free State (UFS), this is the ideal therapy when working with children with disabilities. He said it was amazing to see how they developed.

He was part of a group of Honours students in Psychology who received the best postgraduate Service Learning award in the Faculty of the Humanities for their community project. In 2015, this project by Wijbren, Hershel Meyerowitz, Gerán Lordan, Melissa Taljaard, Simoné le Roux, and Adriana de Vries, was part of their module Community and Social Psychology. They were honoured at the Faculty’s prize-giving function on 15 April 2016.

Purpose of project

“Our purpose with the project was to demonstrate to the children that they could still accomplish something, despite their disabilities,” Wijbren said. The students work on a weekly basis with learners from the foundation phase of the Lettie Fouché School in Bloemfontein. Marie Olivier’s Equistria Therapeutic Development Trust serves as the site for the community project. She has a long standing partnership with the UFS.

Horse-riding and therapy

According to Wijbren, the idea was to stimulate the psychomotor functioning of the children, as well as to promote their psychological well-being. He said research has shown that there is incredible therapeutic value in horse-riding. In this specific case, it has improved the children’s self-confidence, as they may have a poor self-image as a result of their disabilities.

“At the beginning of the year, there was a girl who didn’t even want to come close to a horse, let alone getting onto the horse. We kept on trying, and, once she was on the horse, we couldn’t get her down. This was the amazing thing about the project,” said Wijbren.

Award a surprise

Wijbren said the award was a honour and surprise to his group. He was full of praise for Dr Pravani Naidoo, a lecturer in Psychology at the UFS, who coordinates the therapeutic horse riding project. “She has a tremendous passion for this project, and challenged us to think on our feet. She is a real inspiration.”

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