Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
18 July 2024 | Story VALENTINO NDABA | Photo SUPPLIED
Nelson Mandela Month 2024
Celebrating #UFSMandelaMonth2024: Building a brighter future through community and care.

Mandela Month at the University of the Free State (UFS) is a time to honour Nelson Mandela's legacy through reflection, action, and community engagement. Guided by Vision 130, UFS aims to make a profound societal impact by fostering sustainable relationships and supporting societal development.

Community Engagement Indaba

As South Africa celebrates Mandela Month, the Directorate of Community Engagement hosted the Community Engagement Indaba at the Bloemfontein Campus from 10-11 July 2024. This year's theme was “Building Self-reliance, Self-sufficiency, and Self-sustainable Livelihoods for Entrepreneurship”. 

The Indaba was a vibrant platform for staff, students, and community members to exchange knowledge and skills on how to implement the objectives of our Engaged Scholarship strategy and policy.

This was an opportunity to engage in education, training, and networking with experts from various disciplines. Topics of discussion included:

• Self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and self-sustainable living
• Contextualising curriculum to respond to societal impact
• Entrepreneurship
• Personal development and transformation
• Subsistence farming
• Growing and manufacturing of cannabis products
• Nutrition and health, food security

Helping future educators dress for success

Mandela said: “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” This Mandela Month, the Teaching Practice Directorate supported fourth-year and Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students who lack professional clothes for their teaching practice, impacting their confidence and hampering their first impressions.

The Faculty of Education of the Qwaqwa Campus is conducted a donation drive for formal clothing and workwear to help our UFS-produced aspiring educators enter the world of work with enthusiasm and confidence.

Soup kitchen at HCYCC

On Mandela Day, the Faculty of Theology set up a soup kitchen at the Heidedal Children and Youth Care Centre. This event is an initiative aimed at providing nutritious meals to children and youth, fostering community engagement.

It’s in your hands: Food Environment Programme

The ongoing Food Environment Programme tackles student food insecurity, aiming to create a healthy food environment. Says Annelize Visagie from the Food Environment Office: “The Food Environment Programme is designed to address the many dimensions of the food environment; assisting students who suffer from food insecurity and hunger is part of the overall programme. The University of the Free State has previously identified student food insecurity and hunger as a significant problem, with as many as 59% of students identified as not knowing where their next meal will come from. In addition, they have recognised that food insecurity has added stress to students’ lives which has a negative impact on their studies.”

The programmme includes the following initiatives:

No Student Hungry Programme: Provides one balanced meal per day.
• Food Parcel Programme: Distributes food parcels with non-perishable items.
• Community Gardens: Enhances campus food security in collaboration with Kovsie ACT and the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.

Eat&Succeed: Provides valuable insights, practical tips on making affordable and nutritious meals.

Click to view documentClick on the email to donate to these initiatives or call +27 51 401 3258.

Join us in making a difference and showing our commitment to care as we celebrate Mandela Month by at the UFS. Together, we can honour Nelson Mandela’s legacy of service and societal development. Every Day is Mandela Day at UFS.

News Archive

Early nutrition impacts on burden of disease
2017-11-15


 Description: Corinna Walsh read more Tags: Corinna Walsh read more

Prof Corinna Walsh during her inaugural lecture on ‘Nutrition in Transition’.
Photo: Stephen Collett 

“The first 1 000 days, from conception to two years, is a critical time to ensure that the early environment is optimal to guarantee the best outcomes,” Prof Corinna Walsh, Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Free State (UFS), said. She delivered her inaugural lecture on Nutrition in Transition on 30 October 2017. 

During her lecture, Prof Walsh explained how an unfavourable early environment impacts on the health and well-being of both children and adults. She gave an overview of the prevalence of hunger and food insecurity in the Free State, and described the shift that has occurred from healthier traditional diets to more unhealthy Western diets accompanied by sedentary lifestyles. These patterns are closely linked to the triple burden of malnutrition, including undernutrition, micro-nutrient malnutrition, and obesity. Finally, Prof Walsh highlighted the double burden of disease, focusing on chronic lifestyle diseases on the one hand, and infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and TB on the other hand.

“Preparing for this lecture has given me the opportunity to reflect on the almost thirty years of my research journey, a process that I thoroughly enjoyed,” said Prof Walsh.

“It was a privilege to share the work of my research team with fellow colleagues as well as with family and friends,” she said. Prof Walsh is a National Research Foundation C-rated researcher and also served on the Board of the Medical Research Council from 2005 to 2010.

Foundations for health, growth established early
The first 1 000-day window focuses on the time between conception and the second birthday. “This is a critical period for growth and development,” Prof Walsh said. It is a unique period, as the foundations for health, growth, and neuro-development are established. It also focused on the implications of malnutrition, which is the biggest risk factor contributing to the global burden of disease.


Research identifies burden of disease
Her research has made a considerable contribution to identifying the burden of disease in the Free State. “It focuses on both malnutrition and infectious diseases such as HIV and TB on the one hand, and chronic lifestyle diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension on the other,” she said. The research team have also implemented a number of interventions to address these challenges, including programmes that have assessed the impact of nutrition-education programmes, household food gardens, and nutrition supplementation.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept