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28 June 2024 | Story Carmenita Redcliffe-Paul
Global Citizen Invitation Prof Thuli Madonsela 4 July 2024

The University of the Free State (UFS) and the South African Chamber of Commerce United Kingdom (SACC UK) are pleased to present a Global Citizen Series conversation, South Africa’s Future in Focus: the post-election impact on social justice, service delivery, higher education, and the economy, from the perspective of Prof Thuli Madonsela, Director of the Centre for Social Justice in the Faculty of Law at Stellenbosch University and Professor of Law in the Law Trust Research Chair in Social Justice Studies.

As part of the Global Citizen Webinar Series, Prof Madonsela – a member of the International Anticorruption Advisory Council and Global Justice Leaders – will join UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Francis Petersen, and SACC UK Chairperson, Sharon Constançon, for a conversation that explores what the future holds for social justice, service delivery, higher education, and the economy in South Africa.

After thirty years of democracy, South Africans once again made their mark on 29 May 2024 in one of the most pivotal elections since 1994. Join us in person during the Free State Arts Festival or online as we explore South Africa’s Future in Focus: The post-election impact on social justice, service delivery, higher education, and the economy.

Date: Thursday 4 July 2024
In-person event SA time: 18:00-20:00 SAST, Centenary Complex, UFS Bloemfontein Campus
Webinar SA time: 18:30-19:30 / UK time: 17:30-18:30

The livestream link will be shared with those who RSVP

Enquiries: Tebello Leputla - leputlatb@ufs.ac.za +27 51 401 3966

About Prof Thuli Madontsela

Prof Thuli (Thulisile) Madonsela is the Director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in the Faculty of Law at Stellenbosch University and Professor of Law in the Law Trust Research Chair in Social Justice Studies. She is the founder of the Thuma Foundation for Democracy Leadership and Literacy and a member of the African Academy of Sciences. She was recently appointed to the UN Scientific Advisory Board and as Chairperson of Cities Alliance. She is a member of the International Anticorruption Advisory Council and Global Justice Leaders.

The former Public Protector of South Africa and full-time Commissioner in the South African Law Reform Commission was one of the 11 technical experts who helped draft the South African Constitution, and is a co-architect of several constitutionally mandated laws, including the Equality Act, Employment Equity Act, and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. She has an extensive background in applied constitutional, social justice, and administrative law principles, mainly based on her years of public service and her investigation of improper conduct in state affairs as Public Protector. A regular sought-after keynote speaker, Prof Madonsela has written, taught, presented papers, and published on these matters and ethical leadership, good governance, and gender mainstreaming for decades.

Prof Madonsela helped draft several international human rights instruments at UN, AU, and SADC levels, as well as country reports on such matters. She currently teaches Constitutional Law, Social Justice Law, Administrative Law, and Constitutional Governance and Ethical Leadership. She holds eight honorary law doctorates, in addition to two law degrees, a Harvard Advanced Leadership Certificate, and other postgraduate qualifications.

Named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2014, Prof Madonsela’s global recognition includes more than 70 awards, including Rotary’s Paul Harris award, the Commonwealth Lawyers Truth and Justice award, and the global ACFE’s Cressy award. Prof Madonsela is a mother of two, a philanthropist, and an avid mountaineer who has summited Mt Kilimanjaro twice under the #Trek4Mandela-#Caring4Girls anti-period poverty campaign and the Musa Plan for Social Justice, and regularly hikes for the #Action4Inclusion campaign, a quest to end student debt.

News Archive

'Structures of Dominion and Democracy' by David Goldblatt at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery
2015-08-03

Photograph by David Goldblatt, On August 16 2012 South African Police shot striking mineworkers of the Lonmin platinum mines, killing 34 and wounding 78 within a radius of 350 metres of this koppie, where the men used to meet. Seventeen of the men, seeking shelter among boulders from police fire, were shot with seemingly lethal intent, some with their hands up in surrender, none were given medical assistance for their wounds. Beyond is the Lonmin smelter, which stood idle during the strike. Marikana, North-West Province, 11 May 2014.

The University of the Free State, in partnership with the Goodman Gallery, presents the exhibition, 'Structures of Dominion and Democracy', by renowned South African photographer David Goldblatt.  

This exhibition, which runs from 13 July to 7 August 2015 on the Bloemfontein Campus, is dedicated to the series, “Structures”, one of the major bodies of works by Goldblatt.  For over three decades, Goldblatt has travelled South Africa, photographing sites and structures weighted with historical narrative: monuments, private, religious and secular, which reveal something about the people who built them.  These sites allow us a glimpse into the everyday. Each place is a repository, a landscape containing an epic story that has involved whole communities: the experience sometimes told through the memorialising of remarkable individuals.

The exhibition, Structures of Dominion and Democracy, traverses two distinct eras in South Africa history. As Goldblatt explains: "Over the years, I have photographed South African structures, which I found eloquent, of the dominion which Whites gradually came to exert over all of South Africa and its peoples.  That time of domination began in 1660 when Jan van Riebeeck ordered a cordon to be erected of blockhouses and barriers that would exclude the indigenous population from access to the first European settlement in South Africa and its herds, lands, water, and grazing.  The time of domination ended on the 2nd of February 1990, when, on behalf of the government and the Whites of South Africa, President FW de Klerk effectively abdicated from power.  Beginning in 1999 and continuing to the present, I have photographed some structures that are eloquent of our still nascent democracy.  In the belief that, in what we build we express much about what we value, I have looked at South African structures as declarations of our value systems, our ethos.”

Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, UFS Sasol Library
University of the Free State
206 Nelson Mandela Ave
Bloemfontein

Gallery hours:  
Monday to Friday 08:30 – 16:30

Entrance: Free
Enquiries: 051 401 2706, dejesusav@ufs.ac.za

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