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Making a difference with the No Student Hungry Programme

10 October 2022 | Story Edzani Nephalela | Photo Kekeletso Takang

Gift of the Givers UFS Food donation — Malefetsane Motsoeneng, Senior Residence Head Officer, Housing and Residence Affairs, receives a list of the items donated by Gift of the Givers for the University of the Free State's No Hungry Student Programme, which aims to curb food insecurity.

Food insecurity in the country is increasing, and with the dire impact of COVID-19 on the economy, the population faces high levels of hunger. As a result, many students in institutions of higher learning struggle to get meals, which threatens their academic success.

To help those students in need, the University of the Free State (UFS) No Student Hungry Programme (NSH), in conjunction with the Gift of the Givers, has contributed toward improving student success and well-being by donating food parcels.

“Gift of the Givers has been delivering these parcels to our Qwaqwa campus since 2020, then to the Bloemfontein Campus, and most recently to the South Campus, where 200 food parcels were donated. This makes a tremendous difference in the lives of our students and provides significant support to our office,” said Annelize Visagie, Senior Officer in the Food Environment Office within the Division of Student Affairs.

While all the NSH programme initiatives have some positive impacts, there are challenges. Queuing for food handouts is often seen by students as one of the most undignified experiences they could have. This includes the stigma attached to being seen as poor and hungry. However, to ensure that the students receive appropriate emotional support and do not feel humiliated about seeking help, the UFS has guaranteed that they receive counselling at the campus Student Counselling Development Centre. These professional services are also considered a learning experience for many students, reducing the stigma.

“The registrations and food collections are confidential since you can also apply digitally by email or an online application. Then we can discuss the ideal time for you to come and collect your package. These packages, including food and toiletries, are packed in bags from well-known grocery stores that we get from our sponsors, so it is impossible to identify whether they are from the programme or store-bought. The stigma is also fading because funded students now accompany their friends to collect their food parcels,” said Malefetsane Motsoeneng, Senior Residence Head Officer, Housing and Residence Affairs.

He added that the students appreciate this programme and would send him messages such as “Thank you so much. If it weren’t for this programme, I don’t know what I would’ve done; now I can focus on my studies.”

While not all needs are satisfied, the programme is making a difference in the lives of students and families by ensuring they have access to healthy meals. This is significant because some students travel as far as Dinaweng, a community 9km from the South Campus. This implies that many walk for about four hours every day to get an education.

Food has become expensive at the current rate of the economy; nonetheless, maize meal, sugar, rice, and cooking oil were among the essential commodities supplied. Photo: Supplied

News Archive

Enhancement of social justice focus at research colloquium

2010-10-07

At the third Education for Social Justice Research Colloquium the publication Praxis towards sustainable empowering learning environments in South were handed to Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: External Relations at the UFS. At this occasion were, from the left: Prof. Dennis Francis, Dean of the UFS Faculty of Education; Prof. Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Research Professor in the Faculty of Education Sciences at the North-West University; Prof. Moraka; and Dr Milton Nkoane, Senior Lecturer in the UFS Faculty of Education.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

This year, the University of the Free State (UFS) was the host for the Research Colloquium: Education for Social Justice for the very first time. It is the third time that this colloquium has been presented.

Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: External Relations at the UFS, opened the colloquium, stating that academics, through their research, are ultimately in a good standing to advise government on important issues such as social justice for them to address these issues accordingly.

Prof. Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Research Professor in the Faculty of Education Sciences at the North-West University, delivered the opening address on the theme: Validating community cultural wealth towards sustainable empowering learning environments for social justice. He said that the legacy of our recent past as South Africa still continues to haunt us, especially as exemplified in the dysfunctionalities that are rife in our education.

“With the colloquium we manage to bring together the ideas, thoughts, resources and efforts of educators and/or educationists concerned with the creation of a more equitable, equal, free, hopeful, peaceful and socially just society. Through our teaching, our community engagement and research activities we strive towards a more humane, caring, respecting and respectful South Africa and the world,” he said.

According to Prof. Mahlomaholo, education and its research are some of the most potent mechanisms at the very centre of social transformation. The papers at the colloquium focused on investigating, understanding and responding to issues of amongst others:

The medium of teaching and learning which continues to be a barrier to many learners to perform to the best of their abilities in the majority of the education institutions in South Africa;
Health, sexuality, HIV/Aids, stigmatisation and other deseases plaguing our communities currently;
Self-fulfilling prophecies and stereotypes about some learners not being as intelligent as the rest and this finally being reflected and confirmed in their poor academic achievements;
Differentiated levels of parental involvement in the activities of their children’s learning due to long absences from their families as they have to work in far-off places of employment;

Papers delivered at the colloquium moved beyond merely identifying the problems; they also suggested possible and plausible research-based solutions to these, such as integrating HIV/Aids education in curricula, listening to the aspirations of significant stakeholders such as mothers and parents generally in teaching and facilitating more rigorous community engagement practices.

At the colloquium gala dinner the book Praxis towards sustainable empowering learning environments in South Africa by authors Dr Milton Nkoane, Senior Lecturer in the UFS Faculty of Education, Prof. Mahlomaholo and Prof. Dennis Francis, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the UFS, was launched. The publication consists of a collection of the best peer-reviewed papers from a conference with the theme Creating sustainable empowering learning environments through scholarship of engagement. The main criterion for inclusion was that the paper should contribute to the theme by means of an original, tight, theoretical and empirical study conducted with the aim of informing the practice of creating sustainable empowering learning environments. The concrete cases examined in many of the chapters are very useful to helping readers understand the specific, on-the-ground concerns related to higher education and schools.

Media Release
Issued by: Leonie Bolleurs
Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2707
Sel: 0836455853
Email: bolleursl@ufs.ac.za
30 September 2010

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