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UFS Health Sciences grows No Student Hungry fund through music

01 August 2022 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Maryke Venter

UFS No student Hungry concert — Attending the first Winter Warmer Indoor Concert, hosted by the Faculty of Health Sciences, were, from the left: Prof Hanneke Brits, Dorah Klaas from UFS Institutional Advancement, Dr Nicholas Pearce, and Mantwa Makhakhe, Senior Financial Planner and Director at Sanlam.

“Don’t worry about a thing,

‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right

Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing

‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!”

An extract from the lyrics of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds, performed by Dr Nicholas Pearce, Head of the Department of Surgery at the University of the Free State (UFS), and Prof Hanneke Brits, Associate Professor in the UFS Department of Family Medicine, singing along with the staff and students from the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences and the audience. This performance was one of the highlights during the first Winter Warmer Picnic Concert presented by the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The faculty, besides displaying the talent of its medical students, the Free State Youth Wind Ensemble, the UFS Choir, and nationally renowned Lucy Sehloho, aimed to create a fun evening for staff, students, and the Bloemfontein community in order to raise awareness for hungry students.

About students for students

It is a function about students for students, remarked Prof Prakash Naidoo, Vice-Rector: Operations, who opened the event. According to him, millions of people worldwide go hungry every day. “At the UFS, there are also many students who are not able to afford basic food stuffs. Often, essentials are not covered by student bursaries, leaving students hungry and struggling to perform at the academic level expected,” he said.

To enter the Callie Human Centre on the Bloemfontein Campus where the concert was hosted, members of the audience could donate non-perishable food, sanitary items, or blankets. The 800 food parcels collected at the event will be distributed by the No Student Hungry programme.

Besides students, staff members and their families who attended the concert and donated towards the NSH, the Life Rosepark Hospital and Sanlam also made financial contributions towards the programme.

Community coming together for a good cause

The idea to host the concert and to see lecturers in the faculty perform, stemmed from the CANSA shavathon held earlier this year when more than R10 000 was raised for people suffering from cancer and other related illnesses. Dr Pearce indicated that, should students reach the R10 000 mark, he and Prof Brits would perform Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds. The original idea of one performance evolved into a two-hour concert, seeing members of the Bloemfontein community coming together for a good cause.

“Due to your contribution, many students will not go hungry,” said Dr Pearce, thanking everyone who attended the concert and donated to the NSH programme.

• Should you also like to make a difference in someone’s life and make a cash donation to the No Student Hungry programme, please scan the QR code and follow the instructions. Your contribution can go a long way in making a difference in someone’s life.

News Archive

Vermeulen’s work on display at Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery

2015-10-26

Dot Vermeulen, Anthropology (2014),
Oil on plywood, 300 x 200cm.
Photo: Supplied

“I am primarily fascinated in the travelling or movement of images in different spaces and media. By moving images from one medium into another, or posting and reposting them in different urban and virtual spaces, I ask questions about media presence and space.”

According to the late artist Dot Vermeulen, this is what the work for her Master’s degree was about. She was still completing it at the Department of Fine Arts at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Her work, called Posting Presence, is currently on display at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus. The exhibition is running from 1-30 October 2015.

Vermeulen was a junior lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts before she passed away in a car accident in April 2015.

According to Angela de Jesus, curator of the UFS Art Galery, the exhibition would have been part of Vermeulen’s final evaluation for her Master’s degree. She was one of South Africa’s most promising young artists, and won the prestigious Sasol New Signatures art competition in 2013.

In the work she had done in Posting Presence, Vermeulen said the spaces represented were derived from areas under bridges in an urban space where the visual messages left, speak of an accumulation of movement.

Exhibition event

An exhibition event was held on Friday 16 October 2015 at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery to celebrate Vermeulen’s work.

Janine Allen-Spies and Prof Suzanne Human, the supervisors of her Master’s degree,spoke about the work to those attending.

Catalogue

De Jesus said a catalogue of Vermeulen’s research for Posting Presence had also been compiled, and would be available at the UFS Sasol Library in order for others to “use her work for further research”.

• Vermeulen’s work can be seen from 08:30-16:30 daily until 30 October at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus.

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