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01 July 2021
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Story Dikgapane Makhetha
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Photo Supplied
This year, the young people of South Africa celebrated 45 years of the annual commemoration of
Youth Day. The University of the Free State (UFS)
Community Engagement (CE) office on the
Qwaqwa Campus has engaged a number of stakeholders in the call to use football as a means of bringing people together, transforming lives, and enthusing communities. Through partnerships, community organisations have great potential to create opportunities for breaking down barriers and inspiring social cohesion, initiating enablement through the development of social projects, and promoting education and health awareness.
On 16 June this year, local community organisations collaborated in the hosting of a soccer event for the youth of Qwaqwa at the FIFA Football for Hope Stadium in Tsheseng.
The Agape Foundation for Community Development,
Love Life,
Right to Care,
Youth in Action, Qwaqwa FIFA Project, and the Tsheseng Athletics Club were all stakeholders who diligently joined forces to ensure the successful launch of the tournament. Community development practitioners, who are trainees in the UFS Qwaqwa Department of Community Development, were garbed in departmental branded gear and have cautiously facilitated adherence to COVID-19 protocols. About 250 people, including football fans and participants, attended and enjoyed the entertaining games. Through the partnered recreational project, the Qwaqwa Campus CE office responded to the 2021 Youth Day theme: ‘Growing Youth Employment for an inclusive and transformed society’, by enhancing opportunities for networking among stakeholders. Football is popularly known for promoting transformational social projects in diverse communities across the globe.
Ethics at the heart of healthcare practice
2017-05-17
Prof Gert van Zyl during the launch of Health
Ethics for Healthcare Practitioners with
Prof Laetus Lategan at the Central
University of Technology.
Photo: Supplied
The Central University of Technology (CUT) in partnership with the University of the Free State (UFS) launched a newly published book: Health Ethics for Healthcare Practitioners that aims to raise awareness among healthcare practitioners and patients about various unethical challenges faced by healthcare services in both the private and public sectors.
Prof Laetus Lategan, Director of Research Development and Postgraduate Studies at CUT, and Prof Gert van Zyl, Dean of the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences, are the co-editors of the book intended to provide a moral guide to healthcare professionals when dealing with their patients.
Holistic approach to healthcare practice
Their work places renewed emphasis on the importance of healthcare ethics. This is due to a diversifying range of healthcare services and the imminent collapse of the public healthcare service sector; most notably in developing countries. The authors particularly focus on how their findings can be integrated into real-life situations.
The book looks at modern-day healthcare ethics and how they apply to both patients and healthcare practitioners including doctors, professional nurses and therapists. It is an elaborate reference book that will help healthcare practitioners to make informed decisions should they be faced with ethical dilemmas in their practices and assist them to gain a better understanding and devise solutions to problems faced by communities.
Academic journey and partnerships forged
Prof Van Zyl said the book had been a joyful journey of collaboration between the two universities, a journey of academic colleagues who become friends. He explained that they wanted to focus on creating new approaches to healthcare from an ethical perspective, to provide a guide and reference on ethics, not only to healthcare practitioners, but also to patients. “We hope this book will make a difference in healthcare delivery,” he concluded.
Prof Lategan said modern science needed to become more interdisciplinary, which would transcend the way science was conceived. “The essence of healthcare is to be of service to other people and have relationships with other people. I think it’s high time for us to start caring for one another, especially in the academic environment. If we are really looking after the health of other people, whether it is mental, spiritual or physical health, it starts with caring for other people.”