Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Learn more

Visit our web page

Learn more

Visit our web page

#UFSDeafAwarenessMonth: Raising awareness is our shared responsibility

01 September 2021 | Story Rulanzen Martin

As in previous years, the Department of South African Sign Language and Deaf Studies (SASL) – a pioneering force within deaf studies – will embark on a broader campaign to create much-needed awareness of the deaf.

This year’s #UFSDeafAwarenesscampaign aims to inform and contribute to an inclusive society, not only among the UFS community, but also among the public. The department, together with the Centre for Universal Access and Disability Support, provides exceptional support to the 16 deaf and hard of hearing students at the UFS.

Jani de Lange, Lecturer in Deaf Studies at the UFS, says the deaf forms part of the diverse South African community – “however, there are still many misconceptions about the deaf world. Therefore, deaf awareness plays an important role in facilitating a bridge between hearing and deaf people”.

Awareness, duty, and social responsibility collide

Many of the staff in the department considers themselves part of the deaf community. “They play a major role in educating others through our academic programmes, as well as continuous workshops and short learning programmes,” says De Lange. She continues, saying that by celebrating Deaf Awareness Month, “we are reminded of our role and responsibility towards the deaf.”

The department also has a long-standing relationship with Mimosa Mall in Bloemfontein, with conversational students displaying their final group projects in the centre of the shopping mall. Mimosa is also a partner in school-based projects, such as the Bartimea School for the Deaf and Blind in Thaba Nchu. “Every year, the department, together with our student association, Signals, and all interested Sign Language students, visits Bartimea, where we host a variety of activities with the children and also help the school with small maintenance projects. In 2019 – the last time we were able to visit the school – we repainted parts of the Foundation Phase’s playground,” De Lange says.

“We hope that the public will take the time to read about deafness, Sign Language, and the deaf community to understand the exciting traditions of the culture.” The end goal is to encourage a greater understanding that ‘you do not need hearing to listen’.

Getting the community involved

To get people involved in the campaign, the department invites UFS staff to participate in a competition where they can learn how to introduce themselves in SASL. The department is also planning an informal training session for staff and students on 7 September 2021.

→ Click here for more information

The Department of SASL and Deaf Studies also presents a FREE Introduction to SASL short learning programme.

→ Click here for more information

#UFSDeafAwarenessMonth #DeafAwareness #DeafCommunity

News Archive

Student excels at international level with research in Inorganic Chemistry

2015-09-21

Carla Pretorius is currently conducting research in
Inorganic Chemistry at the St Petersburg University,
Russia.

Photo:Supplied

Carla Pretorius completed her PhD in Inorganic Chemistry recently, with a thesis entitled “Structural and Reactivity Study of Rhodium(I) Carbonyl Complexes as Model Nano Assemblies”, and has just received her results. The assessors were very impressed, and she will graduate at the next UFS Summer Graduation in December 2015.

She is currently conducting research in St Petersburg, Russia, by invitation. She is working in the group of Prof Vadim Kukushkin of the St Petersburg University, under a bilateral collaboration agreement between the groups of Prof Kukuskin (SPBU) and Prof André Roodt (Head of the Department of Chemistry at the UFS).

Her research involves the intermetallic rhodium-rhodium interactions for the formation of nano-wires and -plates, with applications in the micro-electronics industry, and potentially for harvesting sun energy. She was one of only three young South African scientists invited to attend the workshop “Hot Topics in Contemporary Crystallography” in Split in Croatia during 2014. More recently, she received the prize for best student poster presentation at the international symposium, Indaba 8 in Skukuza in the Kruger National Park, which was judged by an international panel.

Carla was also one of the few international PhD students invited to present a lecture at the 29th European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM29) in Rovinj, Croatia (23-28 August 2015; more than 1 000 delegates from 51 countries). As a result of this lecture, she has just received an invitation to start a collaborative project with a Polish research group at the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France.

According to Prof Roodt, the ESRF ID09B beam line is the only one of its kind in Europe designed for time-resolved Laue diffraction experiments. It has a time-resolution of up to one tenth of a nanosecond, after activation by a laser pulse 100 times shorter (one tenth of a nanosecond when compared to one second is the equivalent of one second compared to 300 years). The results from these experiments will broaden the knowledge on light-induced transformations of very short processes; for example, as in photochemical reactions associated with sun energy harvesting, and will assist in the development of better materials to capture these.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept