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UFS PhD student’s team wins Durban leg of prestigious Students Reinventing Cities competition

15 August 2023 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Supplied

Ndumiso Mbuthuma, a PhD student at the University of the Free State (UFS), was part of a team that won the Durban leg of the Students Reinventing Cities competition. “It was a beautiful experience and an opportunity to not only be a student again but to contribute to the greater good,” Mbuthuma said.

The Students Reinventing Cities competition is coordinated by C40, a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities who are united in action to confront the climate crisis.

The Umgeni Interchange Team, which consisted of Mbuthuma, who is a student in the UFS Centre for Development Support, three students from the University of Cape Town, and one from an institution in France, participated in the Durban leg of the competition, which began in April 2023.

After deliberations by C40 and city representatives, the team was informed on 13 July 2023 that they had been selected as the winners of the regional Durban competition.

The Students Reinventing Cities competition provides a platform for students and academics to work with cities around the world to formulate plans to combat climate change. This year the competition took place in 12 cities, including Barcelona, Durban, Rome, Melbourne, and Milan, among others. “The aim of the competition is to find ways in which we can begin to build cities that are climate change-friendly,” Mbuthuma said.

The winning presentation

The Umgeni Interchange Team was allocated four hectares of land by the eThekwini municipality to come up with a development idea. The team members, who specialise in various fields, had to rely on each other to create a winning project. Their proposal entailed the development of a mixed-use, commercial, retail, and affordable-housing block.

“We wanted to ensure affordable housing not just for the rich but even for those who aren’t,” Mbuthuma explained. His PhD, which focuses on floods and disasters, provided guidance on ensuring that the housing block was resistant to floods and other disasters. The proposal also suggested sustainable resource use, including the use of solar panels to generate energy in order to reduce the impact of loadshedding.

Even though a victory in the competition is a great feeling, Mbuthuma is more appreciative of the opportunity to have been active in the battle for a more sustainable future. “To hear that policymakers are interested in hearing what I have to say is a big deal to me.”

Future endeavours

Although there has been a concerted effort globally to combat climate change, Mbuthuma believes that in countries such as South Africa there hasn’t been adequate discourse around how development will take place in a future defined by climate change and the resulting disasters expected. As such, he is committed to working towards normalising these conversations.

News Archive

Middle East activists speak about peace on the Bloemfontein Campus

2012-03-15

Bassem Eid (left) and Benjamin Pogrund discuss the situation in the Middle East.
Photo: Johan Roux
15 March 2012

Peace is a big word in the Middle East, particularly amongst Israelis and Palestinians. After years of conflict, people yearn for peace; they want an end to the killings and the uncertainty. The problem is that both sides are actively doing things that undermine the prospect of peace. There is also double talk, lies and evasion with each side pointing fingers. This was the word from Benjamin Pogrund, an Israeli peace activist, addressing staff and students on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State. He and fellow peace activist Bassem Eid, a Palestinian, visited the campus to speak about the situation in the Middle East.

Both men agreed that peace efforts were hindered by the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders. According to Pogrund, neither the Palestinians, nor the Israelis are leading the way in accepting that the conflict must end.

“Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders say let us get together with no pre-conditions. Then the Israeli leaders say, Jerusalem we cannot share, that is not for negotiation. And, they say to the Palestinians you must recognise Israel as a Jewish state. So, what they say is unless you agree to these pre-conditions there can be no talks without pre-conditions.

“And the Palestinians in turn say the settlement construction must cease immediately, and unless that happened, there is no point in meeting. And they say we will never acknowledge you as a Jewish state so do not even bother talking about it. And we insist on the right of return of Palestinian refugees. So they also say unless you acknowledge these pre-conditions there is no point in meeting with our pre-conditions. So as you can gather each side blames the other side, each side points the finger and says you are responsible for the lack of progress.”

Pogrund said both the Israelis and the Palestinians could demand legitimacy in that part of the world.

“Both Jewish and Arabs can say we have history on our side. We have religion on our side, culture.”

To compare Israel to Apartheid South Africa is wrong, he said.

“It is an occupation, it is repression, but it is not Apartheid.”

Eid, who is the director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, said the Palestinians were close to having a complete independent Palestinian state from 1994 to 1999.

“But in one rocket former Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon destroyed it.”

He said Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005 did not bring political unity.

“We, the Palestinians, were supposed to start building the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip but unfortunately Hamas started dancing on that Israeli disengagement and considered it as their own success because of their military resistance against the occupation.” He also said Hamas is satisfied with its hold in the Gaza Strip and Fatah is also very satisfied with its hold in the West Bank. According to Eid, it is convenient for the Israelis that the Palestinians are separated.

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