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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

UFS hosts consortium to discuss broadening subcontinent’s food base

2017-03-14

The Steering Committee of the Collaborative
Consortium for Broadening the Food Base comprises,
from the left: Prof Wijnand Swart (UFS),
Dr Sonja Venter (ARC) and Dr Eric Amonsou (DUT).
Photo: Andrè Grobler

There is huge pressure on the agricultural industry in southern Africa to avert growing food insecurity. One of the ways to address this is to broaden the food base on the subcontinent via crop production. Climate change, urbanisation, population growth, pests and diseases continually hamper efforts to alleviate food insecurity. Furthermore, our dependence on a few staple crops such as maize, wheat, potatoes, and sunflower, serve to exacerbate food insecurity.

Broadening the food base
To address broadening the food base in southern Africa, scientists from the University of the Free State (UFS), the Durban University of Technology (DUT) and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) have formed a Collaborative Consortium for the development of underutilised crops by focusing on certain indigenous and exotic crops. The Consortium met at the UFS this week for two days (6, 7 March 2017) to present and discuss their research results. The Principal Investigator of the Consortium, Prof Wijnand Swart of the Department of Plant Sciences in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, said awareness had risen for the need to rescue and improve the use of orphan crops that were up to now, for the most part, left aside by research, technological development, and marketing systems.

"Many indigenous southern African
plant grains, vegetables and tubers
have the potential to provide a variety
of diets and broaden the household
food base.”

Traditional crops Generally referred to as alternative, traditional or niche crops, five crops are being targeted by the Consortium, namely, two grain legumes, (Bambara groundnut and cowpea), amaranthus (leaf vegetable), cactus pear or prickly pear and amadumbe (a potato-like tuber). Swart said these five crops would play an important role in addressing the food and agricultural challenges of the future. “Many indigenous southern African plant grains, vegetables and tubers have the potential to provide a variety of diets and broaden the household food base.” The potential of the many so-called underutilised crops lies not only in their hardiness and nutritional value but in their versatility of utilisation. "It may be that they contain nutrients that can be explored to meet the demand for functional foods," said Swart.

Scientific institutions working together
The Collaborative Consortium between the three scientific institutions is conducting multi-disciplinary research to develop crop value chains for the five underutilised crops mentioned above. The UFS and ARC are mainly involved in looking at production technologies for managing crop environments and genetic technologies for crop improvement. The DUT is focusing on innovative products development and market development.

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