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SASL Star: Simoné du Preez

22 September 2021 | Story Michelle Nöthling | Photo Supplied

“A community needs a culture, and a culture needs a language.” Pause a moment and consider these words of Simoné du Preez.

How do we express our beliefs, values, customs, and norms, if not through language? The same is true for the Deaf – who are a minority cultural group in its own right. “Sign Language is the language in which the Deaf community laughs, cries, learns, and loves,” Simoné, a South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreter at the University of the Free State (UFS), points out. “Without it, no expression – and no cultural expression – can take place.”

Simoné’s passion for SASL was ignited while studying BA Language Practice at the UFS. Taking SASL as a main subject, she fell in love with the language, the culture, the history, and its people. Simoné then went on to do her honour’s degree in Language Practice, with specialisation in SASL Interpreting, and she never looked back. During her seven years as an interpreter at the UFS, Simoné still feels humbled by the student community she serves. “I get to learn so much from students from every walk of life, studying anything from Education to the Arts to Actuarial Sciences.” She enjoys seeing what Deaf students are capable of and is also “proud to be a part of their success stories.”

She not only has a soft spot for our students, but also for the Department of SASL and Deaf Studies that has helped shape her into the interpreter she is today. Simoné adds that she loves working with the Centre for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS). “It’s amazing to see what lengths Martie Miranda and her team are willing to go through in order to achieve equity and equality for our students with disabilities. I am humbled and honoured to be able to play a small role in their big plan.”

Always pushing herself to improve, Simoné has now set herself the goal of becoming a SASL interpreter accredited by the South African Translators’ Institute (SATI). It is immensely important for Simoné that the Deaf community has access to all information at all times – equal to that of a hearing person. The recognition of SASL as an official language in South Africa is vital to actualising this. Simoné underscores the fact that without this recognition, the Deaf are being silenced. “Their voices are just as important as every other person’s. It is time that we listen to what the Deaf community has to say.”

News Archive

UFS presents unique rally

2005-06-07

On Friday 10 June 2005, the University of the Free State (UFS) will present the Kovsie version of the Amazing Race in Bloemfontein.

The Amazing Rainbow Rally will be held in aid of children and babies with serious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

By raising the necessary funds, equipment can be acquired to meet the unique health care needs of these special patients. It will also enable the UFS to maintain the high standards of education, training and research in this field.

The Amazing Rainbow Rally will give some residents of Bloemfontein an opportunity to test their knowledge of the city, as well as their time management skills, communication skills, team work and even their relationships!

About 12 corporate teams from among others Vodacom, Eskom, Medi-Clinic, Mimosa Mall and Nedbank and four university teams must follow a specific route with various checkpoints by car. Here they will have to complete activities or solve clues before receiving their clue to the next checkpoint. Teams will be traveling with cars branded with the logo of the company they represent.

The rally will start at 09:00 at the Rooiplein of the UFS and will again end on the campus where they will complete the last task. The first team to complete this task is the winner of Bloemfontein’s first Amazing Rainbow Rally.

OFM’s breakfast team will do live crossings on the day to reveal how teams are doing.

The Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the UFS serves children with special needs, in other words children who need intensive care, or who suffer from cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and conditions, endocrinological diseases or gastro-enterological conditions.

The Department provides secondary health care to more than 250 000 children in the southern parts of the Free State, but is responsible for the tertiary care of about a million children in the Free State and Northern Cape, as well as some parts of the North-West province, the Eastern Cape and Lesotho. The intensive care units at Universitas and Pelonomi Hospitals serve approximately 1 300 neonatal and 350 intensive care patients annually. The pediatric cardiology unit admits almost 300 high care heart patients per year. Approximately 13 000 out-patients visit these two hospitals every year.

MEDIA RELEASE

Issued by:  Lacea Loader
   Media Representative
   Tel: (051) 401-2584
   Cell: 083 645 2454
   E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za

7 June 2005

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