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UFS to launch Africa Reparations Hub

13 July 2023 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Supplied

UFS African Reparation — The University of the Free State Africa Reparations Hub (UFSARH) aims to anchor the African reparations agenda through scholarship and advocacy.

The University of the Free State (UFS) is set to launch an Africa Reparations Hub, which will serve as a hub for Pan-African-led reparations scholarship, policy, and advocacy. The University of the Free State Africa Reparations Hub (UFSARH) will be housed within the UFS Faculty of Law.

“The UFSARH vision is to be an international academic forum to institutionalise, promote and advance the Africa reparations agenda,” says Khanya Motshabi, UFSARH Strategic Lead. “Its mission anchors the Africa reparations agenda through research, scholarship, and advocacy. The hub is underpinned by the values and principles of excellence, ubuntu, social justice, African-centredness, and Pan-African epistemological grounding of all its initiatives, operations, activities, and undertakings.”

As a Pan-African centre, the hub will work at national, regional, and international levels, and resolves to conduct research, offer education, develop policies, and advocate for reparations via a UFSARH Panel of Experts on Africa Reparations. It will have three key facets: a database on Africans for Africa, which will serve as a repository for resources and an information archive; it will serve as home to the expert group on Africa reparations; and anchor a research group on the subject.

Convened by Dr Catherine Namakula, the hub will be established under the auspices of the Faculty of Law and the Department of Public Law, and would be accountable to an advisory board led by Prof Serges Kamga, Dean of the Faculty of Law, and Prof Shaun De Freitas, Head of the Department of Public Law.

Addressing the wrongs of the past

As a home for a repository of all resources on Africa reparations, the UFSARH aims to support the pursuit of justice for historical injustices such as enslavement, apartheid, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and economic exploitation and extortion. In addition, the UFSARH’s contribution to global equality and social justice aligns with the UFS’s Vision 130 strategic plan.

The UFSARH aims to unify and strengthen the fragmented African reparations narrative by serving as a prominent legal, academic, and transdisciplinary forum.

“The hub would also anchor and reinforce the Africa Reparations Agenda of the African Union. It shall bolster the increased awareness and activism of African government, non-government, civil society, and individual actors through grounding relevant political, diplomatic, normative, and academic activities and initiatives,” says Dr Shelton Makore, UFSARH Technical Lead.

News Archive

National accolade for Dr Philemon Akach

2013-10-21

Dr Philemon Akach
Photo: Sonia Small
21 October 2013

Excellence in Teaching and Learning is highly regarded at the University of the Free State, with our academics recognised on national and international platform.

Earning yet another accolade for the university, Dr Philemon Akach, Head of the Department of South African Sign Language, has been awarded a National Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award. The award by the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) and Council on Higher Education (CHE), recognised Dr Akach as a “leader in the field of teaching and learning – with impact beyond the classroom and the institution.” Recognising his pioneering work within deaf education, HELTASA and CHE commend Dr Akach as an “inspirational practitioner who recognises the inclusion of the marginalised in education.”

Dr Akach is one of five recipients, selected out of a total of 22 candidates from across South Africa that will receive the award. The other winners are from the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Pretoria. The five winners will receive the awards at a gala dinner at the annual HELTASA conference, which takes place from 26 to 29 November 2013.

Dr Akach, who will retire at the end of 2014, says the national recognition is the cherry on top as he prepares to return to his home country. Kenya. “How good can it be?” “This is my life calling,” he said about the 37 years he worked within deaf education.

The academic also received an Alumni Award for Outstanding Service at the recent Kovsie Alumni Awards.

Pioneering work by Dr Akach:

With Dr Akach steering the process, the UFS became the first university on the continent to offer Sign Language as an academic course in 1999.
Dr Akach was part of a nine-member task team that handed over the South African Sign Language (SASL) curriculum to the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga. A member of the ministerial task team since 2009, he helped to coordinate the development of the curriculum that will soon be offered as a school subject to Grade 0–12 learners in all 42 schools for the deaf in South Africa.

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