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20 October 2022 | Story Gerda-Marié van Rooyen
Gali Mokgosi
Gali Mokgosi uses her passion for students and films to promote conversations about mental health and how campus life inside and outside the classroom – including residence life – affects and is affected by the physical, mental, and spiritual health of its students.

Using her experience in theatre and her passion for students, Gali Mokgosi, Residence Head of House Madelief, helps students explore and implement skills to cope with the demands of university life. A Health and Wellness coordinator for residence life, she helps improve their lives by teaching them the value of sufficient sleep, nutrition, exercise, recreation, positive coping strategies, healthy social and sexual relationships, and a sense of belonging within residences.

Mentoring and supporting university students

As a former English lecturer for first-year students, this go-getter saw an urgency to mentor and support university students. In 2016, she landed a job as residence head and resigned from lecturing to focus on theatre and residence affairs. Soon after her appointment, she and her colleague, Nthabiseng Mokhethi, Residence Head of House Ardour, were asked to coordinate the Residence Life Health and Wellness portfolio at a time when there were many suicide attempts and mental health issues, and drug and alcohol abuse plagued residences.

“Our main responsibility as Health and Wellness coordinators is to support Residence Committee Health and Wellness representatives (RCHW) in their respective residences. We facilitate training for RCHW peers and help them to think broadly about how campus life inside and outside the classroom – including residence life – affects and is affected by the physical, mental, and spiritual health of its students.”

Using film to address topical issues

With an honours degree in Drama and Theatre Arts, this UFS alumna knew she had to adapt to virtual means for her portfolio to continue supporting students during COVID-19.

“There was a need for intervention, and I saw an opportunity to close this gap by helping students through their challenges using films. I wrote films that directly address the challenges students were/are facing. Being a residence head, content for my films is always under my nose, and the storyline is undeniably relevant to them.”

Mokgosi wrote and produced four films for the various student support offices, with the help of Shibashiba Moabelo, Institutional HIV/AIDS Programme Coordinator at Kovsie Health, and Pulane Malefane, Assistant Director: Residence Life. These films are, I am, Triggers, Versus me, and Monate jou lekker ding.

This scriptwriter says when students can identify themselves in a story, they tend to gravitate towards a solution as suggested by the story. Students across the University of the Free State’s (UFS) three campuses act in the films. After watching a film, students engage with each other and receive tools to explore the story and reflect on the outcomes as suggested by the film.

Proving her sensitivity for inclusiveness, she had an opportunity to be part of the art skills exchange programme in Deaf theatre at Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. She also presented a research paper in Athens, Greece.

Mokgosi is looking forward to experiment with Deaf films in 2023.

Asked how she looks after her mental health, she reveals: “I take care of my mental health through prayer and meditation. I believe the first place to prosper is through my spiritual life. God is my strength from day to day. He is my all in all. Without Him, I will fall.”

News Archive

Researcher uses NRF funding for studies to conserve plant and animal life
2017-04-18

Description: Butterfly Tags: Butterfly

It is difficult to survey all different types of
plants and animals and is therefore necessary to
choose one representative group. Butterflies are
relatively cheap and easy to sample. They are
known to be linked to specific habitats and to
respond to human pressures, such as farming.
Photo: Dr Falko Buschke


Earth is the only planet we know of that contains life. The variety of different plants and animals is remarkable: from the giant whales that swim our oceans, to the tiny mosses that grow on the shaded sides of rocks.  Many of these plants and animals are important to humans. For example, trees provide us with oxygen to breathe, bees pollinate our crops and owls control pests. More importantly though, we can tell a lot about society from the way it cares for nature. Humans are the custodians of the planet and the way we care for nature reflects the way we value life.

Dr Falko Buschke, Lecturer at the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State, is interested in understanding how the distribution of biodiversity [the variety of living things in nature] in time and space influences the way we should conserve and manage nature.

Earth is losing biodiversity faster than at any time in human history
The planet is losing biodiversity faster than at any time in human history. “There is an urgency to conserve plants and animals before they are lost forever. Nature is complex, so the way we study it should embrace this complexity. We should not rely on limited data on one type of species from one place and assume that it will also apply elsewhere. Instead, it is important that biodiversity research is comprehensive in the types of plants and animals while also considering that ecological and evolutionary processes vary through time and across geographic space,” he said.

To conduct his research, Dr Buschke uses a variety of research tools, including biological data surveyed directly from nature, spatial data from satellite remote sensing and geographic information systems databases, and data generated though custom-built computer simulations.

"There is an urgency to conserve
plants and animals before they
are lost forever."

Field work in the eastern Free State
Although parts of the eastern Free State are considered a global priority for biodiversity conservation, it is mainly privately owned commercial farmland. This means that it is important that plants and animals can survive despite living side by side with agricultural production.

“My project investigates whether the sandstone outcrops, known as inselbergs (island-mountains), are safe havens for plants and animals. Because it is difficult to survey all the different types of plants and animals, it is necessary to choose one representative group. That is where butterflies come in. Butterflies are relatively cheap and easy to sample. They are known to be linked to specific habitats and to respond to human pressures, such as farming,” he said. “Once this butterfly data is collected, it can be linked to satellite information on plant growth patterns. This will provide a clearer picture of whether plants and animals can persist side-by-side with commercial agriculture”.

Dr Buschke has just begun surveys that will carry on until the end of this year. “This 12-month project is funded under the Foundational Biodiversity Information Programme through the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the National Research Foundation (NRF).

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