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Melissa de Aveiro inspires UFS with journey about rising from the ashes

31 May 2022 | Story Lunga Luthuli | Photo Supplied

Singer, writer, and motivational speaker, Melissa de Aveiro, says: “One can only rise from the ashes when the fire starts again, and the beauty of it all is that the ashes is stuck to your clothes. As you move on, you build off it as it falls from your clothes.”

She said: “When the fire starts in you, nothing is going to stop it.”

This she said at the Division of Organisational Development and Employee Well-being’s Rising from the Ashes event held at the Centenary Complex on the Bloemfontein Campus. Melissa’s story is about never giving up and “never backing down – even when people throw you with rocks, use the rocks to build a new road”.

Melissa said: “Many people unfortunately do not rise from the ashes because there is no support from friends, people. You can never do it alone as the journey through the ashes is lonely.”

Melissa believes to get through the ashes, one has to go back and “remind yourself of when it was good in your life, remind yourself about the positive things – even though things might not be great now”.

Known as the 'Weskus Dutchess', and growing up in Vredendal, Western Cape, Melissa’s tough life, sexual abuse, drug abuse, homelessness, and the death of her son never stopped her from dreaming. All the setbacks planted in her a “passion for a guitar and people, a birth of a new season, a desire to change the world”.

To rise from the ashes, Melissa said, “You need to go back to the place where you were hurting, confront the demons, the people that abused you, maybe forgive them and remove the chains you are tied with.”

Susan van Jaarsveld, Senior Director: Human Resources at the University of the Free State, believes that hosting wellness events is a way for the UFS to show that “employees are the most valuable asset of the university and need to be looked after”.

Susan said: “Staff need to know that it is okay not to be okay. However, the UFS has systems to look after your well-being. People need to know that they are not alone, they can make use of the Department of Human Resources’ Careways Employee Wellness Programme.”

Susan believes it was important to host the event, as “staff need face-to-face interaction for their well-being, it helps people to know they are not alone”.

Melissa, the author of the book Weskus Wonderwerk, believes in being unstoppable. She said: “To rise from the trenches, always think positive about yourself, you must exist. You cannot give up; your worth cannot be determined by an individual.”

News Archive

UFS hosts the first Southern African Young Scientists Summer Programme

2012-11-26

The University of the Free State is to host the first Southern African Young Scientists Summer Programme (SA-YSSP) from 1 December 2012 to 28 February 2013.

This will form part of an annual three-month education, academic training and research capacity-building programme jointly organised by the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), based in Austria.

The NRF, as the National Member Organisation (NMO), in collaboration with DST, has developed a novel and innovative initiative with IIASA to establish the SA-YSSP. This programme was officially launched by the Minister of Science and Technology during November 2011.

IIASA is an international research organisation that conducts policy-oriented scientific research in the three global problem areas of energy and climate change, food and water and poverty and equity (www.iiasa.ac.at). South Africa’s engagements with IIASA, and specifically with regard to the SA-YSSP, relate primarily to the DST’s Ten-Year Innovation Plan.

Aligned with the YSSP model that is presented by IIASA in Austria annually, the SA-YSSP offers scientific seminars covering themes in both the social and natural sciences. These seminars often have policy dimensions and aim to broaden the participants’ perspectives and strengthen their analytical and modelling skills, further enriching a demanding academic and research programme (www.ufs.ac.za/sa-yssp).

Keynote lectures are to be delivered by national and international leaders in their respective research fields, partly drawn from IIASA’s widespread network of alumni and collaborators, as well as from the NRF’s extensive international networks of excellence.

The programme is to be enhanced with specific field trips and cultural and heritage excursions that will involve networking with locally based research programmes. Supervisory teams of both IIASA and South African experts will guide a cohort of competitively selected South African and international advanced Ph.D candidates.

The programme will be opened on 2 December 2012 at the Centenary Complex by the Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Derek Hanekom, the Director/CEO of IIASA, Prof Pavel Kabat and the Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, Prof Jonathan Jansen. They will be joined by a number of Nobel Prize Laureates and luminaries representing the government, the diplomatic sector and Higher Education.

The programme is directed by a multidisciplinary team at the UFS that includes:

Prof Aldo Stroebel and Prof Neil Roos (Co-Directors)

Prof André Roodt (Dean of SA-YSSP)

Prof Martin Ntwaeaborwa and Dr Henriëtte van den Berg (Deputy-Deans of SA-YSSP)

Dr Priscilla Mensah and Dr Sonja Loots (Strategic Managers)

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