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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

Centre for Universal Access and Disability Support HOD selected as prestigious Fulbright scholar
2015-06-24

Hetsie Veitch and Gabriela Schroder
Photo: Valentino Ndaba

Hetsie Veitch, who has served as the Head of the Centre for Universal Access and Disability Support at the university for the past seven years, recently won the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship for studies in the USA. Hetsie has been placed at the renowned Syracuse University in Upstate New York, where she will read for a PhD in Disability Studies in the School of Education.

By focusing on matters of social justice in the pedagogy of higher education, Hetsie will explore the creation of universally accessible learning spaces for students so that she can apply these ideas on her return to South Africa in four years.

Under her leadership, the Unit for Students with Disabilities (USD) was transformed into the Centre for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS) in order to reflect new approaches to universal access and universal design.“It is my ultimate goal,” says Hetsie, “to create an institutional culture that includes and welcomes all students with disabilities.”

It is difficult to fully capture the enormous contribution Hetsie has made to the UFS in disability justice, by establishing platforms for students with disabilities that enable them to be appreciated as individuals, and to excel in academic studies.

One of our star students, Gabriela Schröder, also won the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. Gaby, as she’s called, will be taking up doctoral studies in Biochemistry at a leading university in her field, namely North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Gaby earned her BSc Honours degree in Biochemistry at the University of the Free State, after also completing her undergraduate studies in Chemistry and Biochemistry at Kovsies.

She participated in the F1 Leadership for Change Programme (Class of 2011) as part of the first-year cohort that went to the University of Vermont. In 2012, she was selected to participate in the elite Stanford Sophomore College Programme with students from Oxford University (UK) and Stanford University in California.

In 2014, Gaby was awarded the Dean's Medal, a distinction which is presented to the best final-year student studying towards a Bachelor’s degree in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. She was also the proud recipient of the Senate Medal, awarded for academic excellence in the achievement of a Bachelor’s degree at the university.

 

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