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Rofhiwa Fatima Galatia crowned Miss Free State

05 May 2021 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa

Fatima_web read more — Once again, a Kovsie takes the crown for this year’s 2021 Miss Free State beauty pageant.

Rofhiwa Fatima Galatia is a 21-year-old BCom Accounting student at the University of the Free State (UFS), and the newly crowned Miss Free State 2021.

Rofhiwa is also a UFS athlete and co-founder of Immeasurable Women – a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) that is all about women and community upliftment.

She entered the Miss Free State competition in order to align herself with the pageant’s brands, which aims to empower and support the ideals of an intellectual woman who embodies leadership and wants to foster development in communities.

“I believe that generational poverty is caused by a lack of a support system,” Rofhiwa remarked.

“My next step is to use this platform to uphold the South African patronage system of the Miss Free State competition. I want to encourage talent and fight food insecurity within our community, and further empower women and the community as a whole by breaking the stigma of limitations and poverty, through soliciting support and participation from business,” stated Rofhiwa.

She further explained that she believes it is her responsibility to show people that they are immeasurable and that they can be ordinary people with extraordinary dreams.

News Archive

Darwin lecture focuses on the genetic foundation of evolution

2009-05-22

The Department of Genetics at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently made their contribution to the story of life and survival by presenting two lectures on The genetic foundation of evolution. Prof. Johan Spies, Head of the Department of Genetics at the UFS discussed the variation that was created by mutations and how this variation was enhanced by re-combination. He also pointed out that these methods contributed relatively little to the gene pool of a species and that the expansion of the gene pool primarily took place by means of chromosome evolution. The latter also contributed to the creation of isolation mechanisms to prevent hybridism. He further emphasised the multitude of deviations of mendelian heredity, which contributed to more variation within a species.

Prof. Paul Grobler, Associate Professor from this department, next pointed out how natural selection played a role to form new species. He used various examples to indicate how the process took its course, for example, lactose intolerance. He also reported out that the man on the street mostly believed that Darwin with his theory of the survival of the fittest meant that the physically strongest species would survive. It was more a case of the one that could reproduce the fastest and the most, that would survive, he stated.

Present at the occasion were, from left front: Ms Letecia Jonker, student, Prof. Grobler, Ms Paula Spies, lecturer at the Department of Genetics and Ms Zurika Odendaal, junior lecturer at the Department of Genetics; back: Prof. Spies.
Photo: Stephen Collett

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