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#Challenge: Have a Heart and donate blood

17 February 2021 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Pixabay

blood donation_web read more — Two final-year MBChB students show how it is done when they donated blood earlier this year.

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) staff and students in the Faculty of Health Sciences have challenged other departments in the faculty as well as other faculties and departments at the University of the Free State (UFS) to see whose staff and students will donate the most blood!

Mrs Angela Vorster, UFS Clinical Psychologist, says the South African National Blood Services (SANBS) has been appealing for increased blood donations since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. In order to provide support, the School of Clinical Medicine at the UFS held a virtual blood donation challenge in 2020, to encourage students to participate in altruistic behaviour and to enable the pre-clinical platform year groups to also feel like they are providing essential medical assistance.

“This was hugely successful and consequently we decided to include a blood donation challenge in our annual Mental Health Awareness programme. The benefits of donating blood are not only of a physiological nature (e.g. it assists in reducing iron levels and helps to control high blood pressure etc.) but means you are giving something of yourself. It will definitely save at least one life, perhaps more, and is incredibly beneficial in enhancing feelings of self-worth and personal meaning,” says Vorster.

The Faculty of Health Sciences invited the SANBS to UFS this week to provide all students and staff with the opportunity to donate blood at their place of work and study. So Have a Heart and take a few minutes to relax with a cookie and cool drink while your heart does the work of blood donation for you.

Details are as follows:

When: 18 and 19 February

Where: Francois Retief Foyer UFS

Time: 07:00-14:30

News Archive

Profiling of small businesses discussed

2010-06-03

From the left are: Mr Christoff van der Merwe, businessman from Pretoria, Ms Jackie Ntshingila, Provincial Manager of SEDA in the Free State, Prof. Tienie Crous, Dean: Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the UFS, Mr Barry Chang from Mijona International in Bloemfontein and Mr Hendrik van der Merwe, businessman from Pretoria.
Photo: Stephen Collett

“We need some kind of innovation to help small businesses in the Free State grow to their full potential.” These were the words of Ms Jackie Ntshingila, Provincial Manager of the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) in the Free State at a breakfast presented by the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein.

The faculty and SEDA presented the breakfast after identifying the need to profile small business development agencies and to get the role-players in the province together to discuss the development of small business enterprises.

“It is important that we start to profile small agencies in the province and a university is a good neutral ground to start an initiative like this,” said Prof. Tienie Crous, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the UFS.

“Small business development agencies are working in silos, there are fragmented reporting lines, a duplication of services and the service is rotated among the same group of small, medium and micro enterprises,” said Ms Ntshingila.

“Students do not see themselves as job creators and entrepreneurs are not contributing optimally to the gross domestic product of the province. Job creation opportunities are also not efficiently reported and there is a competitive approach amongst different business associations,” she said.

Ms Ntshingila proposed a couple solutions: “Establish an electronic database, do government reporting through a systems or database administrator and make a presentation to government for adequate funding for these projects,” she said.

At the breakfast it was proposed that the small business development agencies will now be identified and follow-up meetings will be arranged by the faculty and SEDA.

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
2 June 2010

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