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11 March 2022 | Story NONSINDISO QWABE | Photo Supplied
Dr Ralph Clarke
Dr Ralph Clark, Director of the Afromontane Research Unit.

The African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF), in association with the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) of the University of the Free State (UFS), and the Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS), is hosting the first-ever Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022). The theme of the conference is Southern African Mountains – their value and vulnerabilities.

The conference will bring relevant people together into one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity and academic outputs that feed into policy and action. 

The conference will take place from 14 to 17 March 2022 in the majestic Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa and Lesotho. 

According to the SAMC2022 website, this is a truly Southern African regional mountain conference, targeting the African region south of the Congo rainforest (DRC) and Lake Rukwa (Tanzania), but including Madagascar, the Comoros and the Mascarenes (i.e., Angola, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo [southern mountains], Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, La Réunion, South Africa, southern Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

Dr Ralph Clark, ARU Director, said the conference would be a high-level international event with UNESCO patronage and very valuable sponsors.

“The programme will have six parallel tracks (one being dedicated to postgraduate students), with about 200 papers being delivered. In addition, we have some very high-profile special sessions, such as an MRI special session on long-term monitoring activities and associated data availability for climate change-related applications across Africa’s mountains, as well as a UNESCO special session on regional collaboration. We also have Prof Julian Bayliss, described as the man who discovered an unseen world, as the guest speaker at the closing event.”

The conference will bring together relevant people in one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies, with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity, and academic outputs that feed into policy and action.

The GLOMOS team, one of the long-term partners of the ARU, spent the week of 8 to 11 March 2022 on the Qwaqwa Campus to strengthen collaboration and pave the way for new research opportunities in Phuthaditjhaba and the Maloti-Drakensberg.
GLOMOS represents an interface between the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and Eurac Research. Postdoctoral fellow, Dr Stefano Terzi, said: “It’s very interesting for us to look at the Maloti-Drakensberg area because of its diversity. We are in the process of really exciting collaborations.”
Their projects include an understanding of the root causes of land degradation and improving decision-making processes for current water management within the context of water scarcity in the Maloti-Drakensberg.
• For more information on the speakers and the programme, click here 


News Archive

Horse-riding therapy improves self-confidence in children
2016-05-10


This group of Honours students in Psychology at the University of the Free State was honoured with the best postgraduate Service Learning award at the prize-giving function of the Faculty of the Humanities. From the left are Adriana de Vries, Hershel Meyerowitz, Simoné le Roux, Wijbren Nell, Melissa Taljaard, and Gerán Lordan. Photo: Marizanne Cloete.

Horse-riding therapy helps to improve self-confidence in children, and changes their perception of themselves. It puts them in a totally new environment where they can be free of any judgement.

According to Wijbren Nell, who achieved his Honours degree in Psychology at the University of the Free State (UFS), this is the ideal therapy when working with children with disabilities. He said it was amazing to see how they developed.

He was part of a group of Honours students in Psychology who received the best postgraduate Service Learning award in the Faculty of the Humanities for their community project. In 2015, this project by Wijbren, Hershel Meyerowitz, Gerán Lordan, Melissa Taljaard, Simoné le Roux, and Adriana de Vries, was part of their module Community and Social Psychology. They were honoured at the Faculty’s prize-giving function on 15 April 2016.

Purpose of project

“Our purpose with the project was to demonstrate to the children that they could still accomplish something, despite their disabilities,” Wijbren said. The students work on a weekly basis with learners from the foundation phase of the Lettie Fouché School in Bloemfontein. Marie Olivier’s Equistria Therapeutic Development Trust serves as the site for the community project. She has a long standing partnership with the UFS.

Horse-riding and therapy

According to Wijbren, the idea was to stimulate the psychomotor functioning of the children, as well as to promote their psychological well-being. He said research has shown that there is incredible therapeutic value in horse-riding. In this specific case, it has improved the children’s self-confidence, as they may have a poor self-image as a result of their disabilities.

“At the beginning of the year, there was a girl who didn’t even want to come close to a horse, let alone getting onto the horse. We kept on trying, and, once she was on the horse, we couldn’t get her down. This was the amazing thing about the project,” said Wijbren.

Award a surprise

Wijbren said the award was a honour and surprise to his group. He was full of praise for Dr Pravani Naidoo, a lecturer in Psychology at the UFS, who coordinates the therapeutic horse riding project. “She has a tremendous passion for this project, and challenged us to think on our feet. She is a real inspiration.”

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