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The UFS Community Engagement Festival showcased sustainability, entrepreneurship, and social justice initiatives as part of efforts to empower students.

The Engaged Scholarship Office at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently hosted the Community Engagement Festival, a week-long event focused on sustainability, entrepreneurship, and social justice for students. The festival, which forms part of the office’s broader Community Engagement project, showcased various activities and initiatives aimed at educating participants about these critical topics.

A standout feature of the festival, which was hosted on the UFS’s Bloemfontein Campus, was its emphasis on sustainability. Activities included crafting beads from recycled magazines into bracelets and making soap from eco-friendly material. Beyond promoting sustainability and entrepreneurship, the festival also aimed to foster social cohesion by helping first-year students navigate university life.

Gernus Terblanche, an assistant researcher who heads the Engaged Scholarship Office, emphasised the importance of such initiatives. “The Community Engagement project’s focal points are environmental affairs, social justice – where we make use of the hashtag #KovsiesCare – and health and wellness, where the project aims to raise awareness about menstrual health and find ways to assist with sustainable menstrual health,” he said.

The Community Engagement project has grown significantly over the past year, expanding from six members to a community of 200 individuals. Successful projects include a worm farming initiative for income generation, which teaches students how to cultivate and sell worms for composting.

With support from entities such as the KovsieACT office, CTM, the Bloem Shelter and the Bloemfontein National Hospital, the project has gained widespread recognition for its impactful work.

Additionally, the project’s efforts align with the graduate attributes of UFS’s Vision 130, which emphasises skills like communication, critical thinking, and professionalism. Terblanche highlighted the importance of these attributes in shaping well-rounded graduates.

Looking forward, the Community Engagement project plans to sustain its work, with upcoming initiatives like a sewing competition to further engage and empower students within the university community.

News Archive

UFS takes lead in improving quality of training in economics in schools
2006-06-20

The fourth international workshop for trainers in the National Council on Economic Education’s (NCEE) outreach programme for Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East will be presented in Bloemfontein from 18-24 June 2006.

 “Because of the rapid success we achieved in the Free State with similar workshops in Economics education that were presented by the NCEE the past year, we have now invited representatives from education departments and universities of five other provinces to attend the international workshop for trainers,” said Prof Klopper Oosthuizen, lecturer at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Agricultural Economics and initiator of the cooperative agreement with the NCEE.

 The UFS and the Free State Department of Education are the NCEE’s first partners in Africa who received this training.  “The attendance of the five provinces and universities is the first step in the extension of the programme to the rest of the country,” said Prof Oosthuizen. 

 The NCEE is based in the United States of America (USA) and the workshop forms part of the council’s effort to improve the quality of the training of Economics teachers and lecturers across the world. 

 “South Africa is urgently in need of efforts to improve the integration of black people into the market economy.  An understanding of how markets work is one of the pillars of democracy.  Equipping young people with economic understanding and skills will help empower them for responsible roles as individuals and citizens,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

 According to Prof Oosthuizen representatives from the education departments of the Northern Cape, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and North West will also be attending the international workshop for trainers.  Representatives from the Universities of Rhodes, of KwaZulu-Natal, North West and the Durban University of Technology as well as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology will also attend the workshop.

 During this workshop teachers and lecturers in Economics will receive certificates. 

 Various subjects will be covered during the workshop such as world trade patterns, cost and benefits of free trade, exchange rates and international finance.  The training will be done by representatives from the NCEE by using methods such as direct instruction and role play.

 The NCEE is also in the process of training teachers and learning facilitators in the Free State in an effort to improve the quality of Economics classes in secondary schools. 

 “A group of 84 teachers and learning facilitators were trained in December 2005, 50 were trained in January 2006 and the last group of 40 will be trained at the UFS Main Campus in Bloemfontein from 26 June - 1 July 2006,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

 During this seminar the teachers will be trained in issues such as broad social goals in an economy, economic decision making, government’s role in a market economy and fiscal policy.  The training will also be done by representatives from the NCEE.

 The NCEE has been working together with international partners since 1992 to strengthen their Economics teaching systems.  They have already succeeded in increasing literacy in Economics at schools in the USA and more than 20 East Block countries.  More than 1,5 million learners in the East Block countries have already been served by this initiative.  Since 2004 the NCEE’s focus has moved away from the East Block countries to Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

 “Our future plans include strengthening the growing partnership between the UFS, the Free State Department of Education and the NCEE.  We also want to establish a council and centres for economic education which will serve as an umbrella for our joint efforts,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za 
20 June 2006

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