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Alumna congratulates graduates

17 November 2022 | Story Kutlwano Moqholosane | Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Kutlwano Moqholosane, alumna, University of the Free State. Moqholosane obtained her Bachelor of Social Sciences (Human and Societal Dynamics) in April 2022.

To the graduating class of December 2022 – let me start by congratulating you on your hard work! Acceptance to study at university is no small feat and being able to come out on the other side of it is a huge accomplishment to be proud of.

I graduated in April 2022, but my journey with the UFS started back in 2015 when I first sent my application forms. Back then, I was a young girl of 17 with dreams way bigger than me. I felt I could achieve anything I set my mind to.

I was accepted to the university and started in 2016, with the hope to finish in record time and get all the way to master’s and be a practising psychologist by 2022. Life had funny plans, but I'm so grateful for the academic and support staff at the university; they walked me through my mental health struggles and held my hand as I tripped here and there. Without the sensitivity and empathy shown to me by everyone here, I don't think I would eventually have become an alumna of the University of the Free State (UFS).

I had to take a semester off in 2017 after some soul-crushing struggles with mental illness. At the time, I thought it was all over; I could not see a way out of the fog, and I didn’t fully trust myself and my abilities anymore. In January 2018, I made my way back to Bloemfontein to try again anyway.

Between then and now, I have been admitted to a wellness facility a few times. This is unfortunately the reality of living with a chronic mental illness. With each admission, I came back with new and better coping strategies to help me through academics and life in general.

I'm especially glad to have had lecturers like Lindie Coetzee, Kali Nena and Dr Florence Tadi, Dr Lindi Nel, and Dr Jacques Jordaan, who all understood the delicate nature of depression, anxiety, and growing pains, and gave me countless opportunities to write tests, exams, and submit assignments.

What am I doing now?

Well, I'm still a Kovsie through and through! I'm taking a short break from academics, but that does not mean I’m done! I'm sending job applications to the university for the vacancies I might be a good fit for, and I will be applying for admission to the Psychology Honours programme as soon as possible.

I've found a community with the UFS, and I'm very hopeful that I'll still be able to take part and call it home.

My parting message to all of you: stumbling and falling is a fact of life. Some falls will be worse than others, but the biggest thing is that you get up every single time. You are not defined by any of the ways in which you ‘mess up’; you will always have the opportunity to grow into a better person than before.

Once again, congratulations!

News Archive

From peasant to president; from Samora Machel to Cahora Bassa

2015-03-25

Prof Barbara Isaacman and Prof Allen Isaacman
Photo: Renè-Jean van der Berg

When the plane crashed in Mbuzini, the entire country was submerged in a profound grieving.

This is how Prof Allen Isaacman, Regents Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, described the effect President Samora Machel’s death in 1986 had on Mozambique. In a public lecture, Prof Isaacman spoke about the man, Samora Machel, and the influences that shaped Machel’s life. The event, recently hosted by the UFS International Studies Group on the Bloemfontein Campus, was part of the Stanley Trapido Seminar Programme.

Samora Machel: from peasant to president
Born in 1933 into a peasant family, Machel was allowed to advance only to the third grade in school. “And yet,” Prof Isaacman said, “he became a very prominent local peasant intellectual and ultimately one of the most significant critics of Portuguese colonialism and colonial capitalism.” Machel had a great sense of human agency and firmly believed that one is not a mere victim of circumstances. “You were born into a world, but you can change it,” Prof Isaacman explained Machel’s conviction.

From herding cattle in Chokwe, to working as male nurse, Machel went on to become the leader of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo) and ultimately the president of his country. To this day, not only does he “capture the imagination of the Mozambican people and South Africans, but is considered one the great leaders of that moment in African history,” Prof Isaacman concluded his lecture.

Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007
Later in the day, Profs Allen and Barbara Isaacman discussed their book: ‘Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007’ at the Archives for Contemporary Affairs. As authors of the book, they investigate the history and legacies of one of Africa's largest dams, Cahora Bassa, which was built in Mozambique by the Portuguese in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The dam was constructed under conditions of war and inaugurated after independence by a government led by Frelimo. The dam has since operated continuously, although, for many years, much of its electricity was not exported or used because armed rebels had destroyed many high voltage power line pillars. Since the end of the armed conflict in 1992, power lines have been rebuilt, and Cahora Bassa has provided electricity again, primarily to South Africa, though increasingly to the national Mozambican grid as well.

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