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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

US Consul-General speaks at the UFS

2010-09-23

Mr Andy Passen, US Consul-General, and Mr Arthur Johnson from the Internationalisation Office at the UFS.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

The Consul-General of the United States of America, Mr Andy Passen, recently presented a public lecture at the University of the Free State (UFS). He focused on the importance of youth development in the current dispensation and introduced President Barack Obama's Young African Leaders Forum. In his presentation he pressed upon the young leaders that they possessed both the privilege and responsibility to shape the future of Africa for the next 50 years.

He also engaged the UFS as a potential host of the Brown vs Board of Education exhibition, namely Separate is not equal. The exhibition is hosted annually at various cities and higher education institutions in South Africa. The multimedia exhibition uses films, photographs, sound recordings and reconstructions to tell the history of segregation in the USA, the landmark supreme court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education on 17 May 1954, and the subsequent decades of struggle for racial equality. The exhibition also highlights parallels to the South African experience.

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