ISSUE 2 • 2013/2014
A year of UWC excellence in review
360˚ PERSPECTIVES • ISSUE 2 • 2013/14
The following prayer was released by the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town and Chancellor of UWC, upon the official confirmation of the death of former President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela:
A Prayer for Madiba Go forth, revolutionary and loving soul, on your journey out of this world, in the name of God, who created you, suffered with you and liberated you. Go home Madiba, you have selflessly done all that is good, noble and honourable for God’s people. We will continue where you have left off, the Lord being our helper. We now turn to you, Lord, in this hour of darkness, sadness, pain and death, in tears and mourning. We wail, yet we believe that you will console us, that you will give us the strength to hold in our hearts and minds, and the courage to enact in our lives, the values Madiba fought and stood for. We turn to you, Lord, and entrust Madiba’s soul to your eternal rest and loving arms as he rejoins the Madiba clan, his comrades and all the faithful departed. We pray particularly for his closest and dearest, for Ma Graca Machel, for his children, grandchildren and all his relatives; may you surround them with your loving arms, your fatherly embrace and comfort. At this dark time of mourning, at this perfect time when you have called him to rest and a perfect end, accept his soul and number him among the company of the redeemed in Heaven. Console and comfort his family, South Africa and the world. May his long walk to freedom be enjoyed and realised in our time by all of us.
MAY HE REST IN PEACE AND RISE IN GLORY! Amen
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360˚ PERSPECTIVES • ISSUE 2 • 2013/14
MANAGING EDITOR:
FOREWORD
New developments and innovation The year 2013 has been a year of new developments and innovation at UWC, of which some had national and international impact.
Our academic researchers have done an astounding job in ensuring that UWC’s research has significant impact, locally and globally. Featured in the magazine are Professor Charlene Africa’s research on the early diagnosis of gum disease during pregnancy that could be used to predict preterm deliveries, Professor Thandi Puoane and her research into non-communicable diseases in South Africa and Professor Ruth Hall’s reflection on the centenary of the Natives Land Act of 1913.
One of UWC’s primary concerns for the future is to give effect to its mandate as a public university in a manner that critically engages with the range of challenges facing our nation. The 360˚ Perspectives magazine, which speaks to a wide audience of alumni, current and prospective students, and the general public, showcases various elements of the University – from alumni impacting on society to research conducted by our academics, and more importantly, what UWC means for our country and our continent. The content of this publication highlights the widespread difference UWC has made in 2013. UWC opened the ResLife building, which is a hub for students and visitors to our campus. ResLife also serves as a centre for cultural and recreation activities. We saw the completion of the Chemical Sciences Building, and some parts of the Kovacs Student Housing Project. The next big development project for 2014 is the construction of the sports precinct on campus. The University has been on a fundraising campaign for the Chemical Sciences Building and will undertake
During 2013 we celebrated and welcomed alumni from the ‘60s and ‘70s, including a special group of first graduates from 1963 who attended the Alumni Reunion in October. Several alumni received high honours in 2013: Ismail Teladia received a National Teaching Award, Danny Jordaan was elected as President of SAFA, Ashley Uys made the Forbes Under 30 list and Marlene le Roux was made a Knight of the French National Order of Merit (Chevalier de l’Ordre national du merite) by the French government.
a similar campaign to raise funds for the upgrade of the University sports facilities, which will include a new sports centre. The University has been graced with distinguished visitors from around the world, such as former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chairperson of The Elders, Mr Kofi Annan, as well as the 2012 Nobel Laureate for Physics, Professor Serge Haroche.
The University also celebrated the 20th anniversaries of the School of Government, the Community Law Centre and the Gender Equity Unit. We commend them for the work they have done thus far and wish these departments well as they continue to make a difference in the lives of all Africans. I wish you all a good year and happy reading.
Luthando Tyhalibongo
xtyhalibongo@uwc.ac.za PRODUCTION & EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Nastasha Crow
EDITOR:
Nazeem Lowe
SUB-EDITOR: Gava Kassiem
EDITORIAL:
Aidan van den Heever Rothko Media See 3 Communications West Cape News Nicklaus Kruger
IMAGES:
Cheryl Roberts Nelson Mandela Foundation Oryx Media (Benny Gool) See 3 Communications UWC Archives West Cape News Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) Robyn-Leigh Swart
DESIGN:
Black Orchid
PRINTING:
Nadographics Published by the Department for Institutional Advancement, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. For further information visit:
www.uwc.ac.za
Alumni contact: alumni@uwc.ac.za or visit www.uwc.ac.za/alumni
Professor BP O’Connell Rector and Vice-Chancellor
The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the University of the Western Cape leadership. © Copyright University of the Western Cape.
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360˚ PERSPECTIVES • ISSUE 2 • 2013/14
CONTENTS
46
UWC salutes Nelson Mandela
32 The art of giving and doing
things differently
34 Promoting broad-based
land reform
37 A leader with a higher purpose
6
Seen on Campus
8
Gender unit has come
40 Bad bacteria and preterm
a long way
deliveries – the irrefutable link 42 Orientated to life
11 UWC Rector receives
44 Mark de Klerk – The boy who
international honour
13 In the vanguard of the
skills revolution
15 Forensics lab after both the
guilty and the innocent
18 Liberation through education
never gave up
46 UWC salutes Nelson Mandela
15
51 MU-UWC partnership to preserve
Forensics lab after both the innocent and the guilty
Island documents
52 UWC’s Greatest Alumnus 54 Leading Botswana’s biggest
extravaganza ever
56 Humanities: Charged and ready
to create opportunities
58 New BEd to tease out SA web of
22
education issues
60 A pioneer for transformation 62 Health system weighed down
Changing the world through science and small business
by NCDs
64 Land reform: A controversial issue 20 Tik leaves a bad taste in
the mouth
22 Changing the world through
technologies take centre stage
28 The unstoppable
70 Steering education to justice
Crafting a democratic constitution
72 UWC rugby produces more stars
science and small business
24 HySA Systems green
66 Investing in the future
30
Shelley Barry
30 Crafting a democratic constitution
74 UWC’s Dr Danny Jordaan elected
60 74
UWC’s Dr Danny Jordaan elected as President of the South African Football Association
as President of the South African
Football Association
78 UWC’s sports stars honoured for
their excellence
80 Book reviews 85 2013 in a nutshell
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Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu leads Dr Kofi Annan to the podium to deliver the Annual Desmond and Leah Tutu International Peace Lecture at UWC.
MEC for Social Development, Hon Albert Fritz, addresses graduates about the substance abuse programme at UWC.
Chairperson of The Elders and former UN Secretary General, Dr Kofi Annan, delivers the Annual Desmond and Leah Tutu International Peace Lecture at UWC.
Minister in the Presidency, Hon Trevor Manuel, delivers the Annual Amy Biehl Memorial Lecture at UWC in 2013.
SEEN ON
CAMPUS 2012 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Prof Serge Haroche, speaks to UWC Physics students and academics during his tour of the campus.
Cape Town Mayor, Hon Patricia De Lille, opens the 2013 African Human Rights Moot Court Competition hosted by UWC and attended the Desmond and Leah Tutu International Peace Lecture at UWC.
Minister for Science and Technology, Hon Derek Hanekom, explains how the newly-launched South African Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Summer School aims to produce South Africa’s next generation of nanoscientists.
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GENDER UNIT
has come a long way Mary Hames occasionally has to field calls from parents, anxious to know why the Gender Equity Unit (GEU) has been distracting their children, who have volunteered their uncredited hours to the unit’s programmes. What do talks on gender, disability and sexuality have to do with pharmacy, language studies or dentistry, the parents would ask. It’s then when Hames, as GEU director,
would explain the unit’s grand vision, which is to educate and empower – even though Hames would probably not use that word as she doesn’t like it – and to teach young students the art of critical thinking. It’s not a skill encouraged at school, no matter how ‘good’ a school the students come from, according to Hames. So the GEU, with its varied programmes, aims to get students to “really think about” and question everything; from gender, disability and sexuality issues to what universities are all about, and even what the University of the Western Cape of the 21st century is all about.
“Here we deal with young people growing into adulthood,” says Hames, “and we want to facilitate that process.” It’s an eye-opening experience for everyone; for the students who are participants in the GEU’s programmes and those who volunteer to run the projects. For example, the students who take part in the unit’s Edu-Drama project, established in 2006 to provide “a platform for education [on gender] through drama”, discover a whole new way to express themselves. “On the stage, the students can say anything,” says Hames. These days the volunteers have a suite of diverse initiatives through which they can express themselves. In addition to Edu-Drama, there’s LoudEnuf, which tackles sexual diversity through a variety of educational programmes. Project Band Mbali uses music as a teaching tool (Mbali started off with a broken guitar and a student with no formal training but lots of enthusiasm). The Food Programme shifts the focus to food security – something with which many UWC students are all too familiar. Human Nature casts a spotlight on disability and the GEU Mentoring Programme encourages students to act as mentors to learners. If the unit’s programme shows a little more variety than it did back in 1993, when it was first founded, it’s perhaps a reflection of the changing social issues of our time. Attending a recent reunion at UWC, Dr Rhoda Kadalie, who was the unit’s first gender equity coordinator, as the directorship was then known, shared some thoughts on the political backdrop against which the GEU was established. Back then, gender politics, the rights of gays and lesbians, and reproductive rights were considered a lesser concern of the greater liberation movement, and even disruptive distractions.
“The common mantra that ‘women’s liberation was divisive of the national liberation movement’,” recalled Kadalie, “gave rise to a radical feminist movement on campus, in the trade union movement, and the country at large, that directly opposed the insidious implications of such dogma.” From this feminist movement sprang the UWC Women’s Commission, the Women’s Studies initiatives, and anti-sexual harassment and antisexual violence campaigns on campus. Their achievements were manifold, recalled Kadalie: fully paid maternity and paternity leave to UWC staff; an anti-sexual harassment policy; housing subsidies for women; a crèche to support the child care needs of staff; and even a non-sexist language policy unanimously adopted by Senate. When it was founded in 1993, the GEU tapped into that political momentum. Its objectives were to promote the advancement of women academics through research and publications, set up an ad hoc committee to report directly to the Vice-Chancellor and Senate, to explore a women’s studies programme, and address policy on women’s safety on campus. Soon, UWC became the gold standard for women and gender awareness raising in the country. “Those achievements of the past should be hailed, no question,” says Hames. But these measures, along with the related national legislation drafted by UWC scholars, tried to address problems and shortcomings. The way ahead, says Hames, should be more proactive. The GEU aims to shape attitudes, thinking and perceptions, even of society at large. “The next 20 years should be positive,” says Hames.
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UWC
The Rector of the University of the Western Cape, Professor Brian O’Connell, received a high honour from Her Royal Highness, Princess Astrid of Belgium, when a Belgian trade delegation visited UWC recently.
HRH Princess Astrid presented Prof O’Connell with the title of
Commander of the Order of Leopold
On 25 October 2013, HRH Princess Astrid conferred the title of Commander of the Order of Leopold on Prof O’Connell for his tireless efforts to strengthen ties between UWC and Belgium, and for his leadership of UWC. The Hon Johan Maricou, Belgian Ambassador to South Africa, explained why the Rector was chosen to receive the honour. “When Professor O’Connell receives this award, it is not only because of his impressive achievements as the head of this university; more than that, it’s because of the kind of leadership he represents; leadership informed by vision and engagement – he is the kind of VC who leaves his office and talks directly to the students. He is a true humanist, and he has succeeded in bringing to UWC, and Africa, a commitment to the cause of human advancement.” Prof O’Connell explained that the long-term partnership with Belgium had brought many benefits to students and staff, extending and enhancing the global reach and reputation of all parties. “The collaboration between UWC and our Belgian partners began more
Rector receives international honour than 10 years ago, when the University’s future was uncertain in many ways. The collaboration has helped the University achieve extraordinary successes and academic achievements. It has opened so many doors and networks, showing that we are stronger together than apart,” he said. The princess and the Belgian delegation attended a seminar held at UWC that explored new ways to boost innovation, link business and academia, and create opportunities for students and academics from both countries.
“When Professor O’Connell receives this award, it is not only because of his impressive achievements as the head of this university; more than that, it’s because of the kind of leadership he represents.“ During the seminar’s panel discussion academics from UWC, the University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology and Ghent University highlighted the importance of international mobility for graduates, as well as the societal and economic benefits these mobile graduates could bring to the universities and the countries.
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In the vanguard of the
skills revolution There are over three million South Africans between the ages of 18 and 25 who are neither employed nor enrolled in education or training of any kind. This figure represents about half of the youth in that age group. The transfer of skills is urgently needed for these youth to obtain work and become productive members of South African society. This daunting issue is one of the concerns of UWC’s newly formed Institute for Post-School Studies (IPSS). Housed in the Faculty of Education, the IPSS
was launched in September 2013. Through research, social engagement and teaching in the areas of Adult Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education, the IPSS will generate knowledge that assists policy development, such as the 2012 Green Paper of the Department of Higher Education and Training that is being formulated into a White Paper. By contributing to a better understanding of post-schooling (pathways of learning outside primary and high school), the institute will support efforts by adults to access education and training and acquire workplace skills.
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The IPSS has a wide scope, incorporating the former Centre for Adult and Continuing Education (CACE), Higher Education Studies, and Vocational Studies through the Further Education and Training Institute (FETI) will be fully transitioned by 2015. IPSS Director, Professor Joy Papier, explains the Institute’s focus: “Universities have a responsibility to support the expansion of opportunities for youth and adults in education and training. This would entail improving routes of access, and determining what is needed to not only enable greater access, but to ensure success. This includes providing quality learning and teaching to greater numbers of learners.” One challenge is that universities largely do not recognise FET college certification and thus learners who want to embark on a degree receive no credit for their FET studies. Outdated systems also need to be overhauled – a process involving restructuring of institutions, training of teaching staff and modernising curricula. As an indication of how difficult systems change is, FET colleges have been undergoing a process of transformation for the last 15 years following the first Further Education and Training Act of 1998. The field of adult education is also under scrutiny at present.
“Universities have a responsibility to support the expansion of opportunities for youth and adults in education and training.” There are significant demands for skills development in the National Development Plan and the 2012 Green Paper, including a goal of four million students in colleges and adult education by 2030. What infrastructure is required to deal with such a massive expansion?
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Forensics lab
after both the guilty and the innocent
Prof Joy Papier
Do we have enough qualified teaching staff to teach increased numbers? There are 50 colleges across the nine provinces, says Papier, and they will not be able to take in huge numbers of students to meet the policy requirements, without dramatically increasing their facilities and staff. The disparity between opportunities in rural and urban areas also needs to be addressed. Papier has been involved in developing new policy on professional qualifications for lecturers in technical and vocational education and training (VET) since 2009. New professional qualifications for college lecturers were gazetted in June this year. Papier was also part of the ministerial task team looking into the feasibility of forming a national Institute for Vocational and Continuing Education. The task team has delivered its report and awaits the minister’s response. The IPSS will offer a new postgraduate Diploma in Vocational Education by 2014 as a pathway to research in the vocational field.
While cautious about its implementation, MPs across the board greeted the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill [B9B2013] – also called the “DNA Bill” – with enthusiasm when it was passed by the National Assembly in August. Politicians and the DNA Project, a non-profit organisation that is lobbying for the country’s national DNA database to include information on criminal offenders, approved of the bill. The bill will make it mandatory to take DNA samples from suspects at the time of arrest, and for DNA samples to be taken from those already convicted and in the system, before their release. These DNA profiles will be added to the national DNA database. But while the bill could help in tracking down and convicting offenders, staff of the Forensic DNA Analysis Laboratory in the Department of Biotechnology at UWC would like to see if an updated national DNA database can be employed to set innocent people free. “For me it’s more important to release a person from jail who shouldn’t be there, than putting someone away who should be there,” says the laboratory’s head, Professor Sean Davison. “Having someone in jail who shouldn’t be there is horrendous – a crime
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against humanity.” This conviction inspired Davison and Dr Andra le Roux-Kemp, a part-time lecturer in the Department of Public Law at Stellenbosch University, to establish the Innocence Project of South Africa (IPSA). The project is dedicated to the “investigation, litigation and exoneration of individuals”.
“For me it’s more important to release a person from jail who shouldn’t be there, than putting someone away who should be there.” “Exoneration is our first priority,” says Davison. IPSA is modelled on the Innocence Project in the United States, which has contributed to the DNA exoneration of 311 prisoners (22 prisoners in 2013 alone). IPSA is a registered member of the US-based Innocence Network, which brings together like-minded international organisations dedicated to correcting wrongful convictions.
(From left) Kevin Cloete, Prof Sean Davison and Dr Eugenia D’Amato at work in their lab.
UWC’s Forensic DNA Analysis Laboratory will do pro bono work on cases brought to their
360˚ PERSPECTIVES • ISSUE 2 • 2013/14
attention and will perform the necessary DNA analysis, working on biological material (blood, nails, hair, semen, etc) sourced from the original evidence. Initially, they will be dealing with cases from before 2000, and any new analysis could deliver dramatically different results from any done at the time, believes Davison. “The technology has improved so much, which is why innocent people are being released now,” he says. The laboratory concentrates on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), said to be the hardiest and most useful in DNA profiling, since any one cell carries multiple copies of mtDNA. In one of its major projects, it conducted DNA testing on the skeletal remains of anti-apartheid activists; some recovered from graves in the 1990s and before. If the Innocence Project concerns itself with exoneration, other work in the lab involves the exact opposite. For example, Davison and colleague, Dr Eugenia D’Amato, recently announced the development of a prototype rape kit to analyse DNA samples of suspects. What sets this kit apart from any commercial products now in use is that it will account for the specific genotypes – the genetic makeup of an individual or population – of South African population groups. Some kits use African-American genotypes as proxies for black South Africans, for example. To compile the necessary genotypes the team has started work on a reference database that will include genotypes from five South Africa sub-populations: Xhosa, Zulu, Indian, Coloured and Afrikaner.
The kit will be able to tell male perpetrators apart, which will assist in cases of multiple rapes.
D’Amato found that more than 100 samples contained undeclared meat species; in the case of the kangaroo, undeclared imported meat.
The lab’s researchers have also turned their attention to the controversy over meat labelling. In a high-profile study D’Amato conducted on South African biltong she showed that some biltong contained small to substantial parts of ‘substitute meat’, including beef, giraffe, pork, zebra, horse, and even kangaroo. Of the 146 samples she tested,
The laboratory concentrates on mtDNA – said to be the hardiest and most useful in DNA profiling. The study caused such an uproar that she was asked to present her findings to Parliament.
LIBERATION THROUGH EDUCATION
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South Africa still has a long way to go in terms of gender and race equity, but UWC alumna Sylvia Stevens-Maziya is confident that education and economic empowerment can enable people to become self-reliant.
Sylvia Stevens-Maziya’s march to freedom began while she was a student at UWC, when a series of lectures on sustainable development awakened in her a desire to bring about social justice. “It had a great impact on me coming from a previously disadvantaged background,” StevensMaziya says, “to get organised and educated, beginning with myself and the empathy I already felt for my neighbour, and through education moving towards liberation.” Stevens-Maziya achieved a postgraduate degree in Social Work in 1987 and has been actively pursuing social justice ever since. During her time at UWC she was a member of the SRC and was involved in the establishment of the United Democratic Front (UDF). Her latest appointment as a member of the Commission for Gender Equality gives her new scope to realise her dream of equality. “My ideal of a functional, happy society,” says StevensMaziya, “is when families have sufficient support systems in place and no longer rely on the state or their neighbours for assistance. I have seen so many women, as pillars of society, manage to overcome enormous odds and raise professional children by nurturing their potential.” But Stevens-Maziya believes we have not achieved race and gender equity in South Africa: “We have made constitutional gains, but we need to find ways to hold people entirely accountable for the implementation of these gains.” Stevens-Maziya says she was lucky to have a
supportive father who told her she could achieve anything she set out to do. Her lessons of selfreliance were also learnt at home. “As number four of six children, everything came to me second-hand – clothes, knowledge; I was always far from the spotlight. So I realised I had to craft my own reliance. I still push myself to take a step beyond the point where most people would stop. I’m inquisitive, I take nothing at face value. I analyse everything and ask why.” Stevens-Maziya chose to study at UWC after a school guidance counsellor explained the institution’s history of providing students with strong developmental pillars.
Stevens-Maziya believes we are not yet at the point where we have achieved race and gender equity in South Africa. “It all began for me at UWC – the vision, issues of principles and values. In the midst of the chaos of those times, there was order. We had group sessions under the trees until sunrise, about how we could best be ready to govern the country.” Stevens-Maziya has a message for students today: “The real world is highly complex, and it is important to find a balance between theory and practice. We have some of the best policies in the world, but struggle to implement them. We must figure out how to bridge this gap so we do not become a country of people good at designing, but incapable of implementing. We need to uphold our constitution and break the silences, then we will be far more than passive professionals.”
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Tik
360˚ PERSPECTIVES • ISSUE 2 • 2013/14
leaves a bad taste in the mouth “Instead, these patients were presenting with caries on the smooth surfaces of the teeth leading eventually to total destruction of the tooth,” reports Naidoo.
“Cape Town appears to be the tik capital of South Africa,” says Naidoo. “Some 98 percent of methamphetamine patients seen across the provinces come from this city.”
Tik-related dental destruction is caused by rampant decay, hyposalivation, increased consumption of sugar-containing fizzy drinks, poor oral hygiene and bruxism (grinding of teeth). Symptoms include temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, myofascial pain and trismus (contraction of the jaw muscles).
Their study confirms not only the harmful effects of tik use on oral health, but also highlights the impediments to treatment. “Patients usually come to the clinic because of pain,” Naidoo says. “By that stage, most of the teeth are already badly decayed and need extraction or several sessions to repair. The problem is that the patients simply don’t turn up for repeat appointments.”
The ducts in the salivary glands produce saliva that is the primary defence in fighting bad bacteria in the mouth. Other than their role in breaking down starches and fats in our diets, the enzymes in saliva – which is 99 percent water – also keep the mouth moist, buffered, and in a state of homeostasis; that is, a pH balance with just the right amount of acid in the mouth.
Prof Sudeshni Naidoo (right) and master’s student Dirk Smit have found an increase of cases of ‘meth mouth’, a rotting of the teeth caused by use of the drug tik.
In recent years, Professor Sudeshni Naidoo and colleagues at the Faculty of Dentistry noticed an increase in young adult patients at the Tygerberg Oral Health Centre with apparently rotting teeth. But these cases weren’t of textbook decay, in which caries, or holes, typically form in the fissures and pits of the teeth.
community dentistry, have recruited some Cape Town patients between the ages of 21 and 29, making their study the largest of its kind (Smit recently won the community-based prize for the study at the meeting of the International Association for Dental Research, and will soon present his research to the South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use).
In mechanisms still being studied and debated, the use of tik mutes the salivary glands and inhibits saliva secretion, causing a dry mouth, or xerostomia. One theory is that the drug causes a narrowing of the blood vessels in salivary glands, decreasing the flow of saliva. Others argue that the use of the drug affects those parts of the brain that control the salivary glands. To counteract the dry mouth, tik users consume vast amounts of fizzy drinks. With no saliva around, this creates the perfect acidic conditions for rapid tooth decay and wear by weakening
the surface molecules of teeth. To exacerbate matters, tik users often grind their teeth as a result of drug-induced hyperactivity. This causes accelerated tooth wear. They lose interest in basic personal and dental hygiene. A tik high can last for days; users don’t bother brushing their teeth for extended periods causing plaque to accumulate and the bacteria to continue metabolising sugars into acids. The acidic environment often leads to erosion and when mouth pH drops below critical levels, tooth decay is the result. Sadly, the condition is vastly under-researched. Although studies of the effects of methamphetamine use on teeth exist in international literature, none have been conducted in a sample of any decent size. Naidoo and Dirk Smit, a dentist at Tygerberg Hospital specialising in
“Education is key. Not only in communities, but other health care workers (nurses, social workers and medical practitioners) also need to be educated in the oral signs of methamphetamine use.”
A tik high can last for days; users don’t bother brushing their teeth for extended periods causing plaque to accumulate and the bacteria to continue metabolising sugars into acids. This, she says, will encourage referrals to dentists and, hopefully, drug treatment centres. Combating a social ill such as tik use requires buy-in from government, industry and society. And perhaps seeing a picture of a ‘meth mouth’ might go a long way to putting anyone off drug use for life.
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Changing the world through science and small business
All the awards that have already come the way of the 29-year-old began with a simple desire to be his own boss. “Clifford Jacobs at UWC was, and still is, my mentor. He always encouraged me to think “out of the box” and that way of looking outward had a profound effect on how I thought about the potential of science and the possibilities for improving the world around me.” After graduating, Uys was chosen to participate in a state-funded programme that recruited bright young scientists from various universities in the country. They were sent on business courses and then given the option of being placed in a host company or setting up their own business. Uys was the only scientist to take up the latter option.
Ashley Uys, a BSc Honours graduate from UWC, is showing how thinking small can have a big impact. Named this year on the Forbes 30 Under 30: Africa’s Best Young Entrepreneurs list, Ashley Uys, founder of Real World Diagnostics, is breaking new ground in developing affordable and reliable mini medical testing products with the potential to revolutionise healthcare on the continent and beyond. His medical test kits start at just R4 each and include a malaria test kit that gives an early diagnosis of the disease, indicates its strain and shows how well the medication is working. It is similar to a high blood pressure test and needs less than a drop of blood to determine if a person has contracted the disease. His most recent invention is called Oculus ID – a software application that can check for drug use with the aid of a cell phone. A photograph is taken of the subject’s eye, that is interpreted by the app using the pupil’s response to light. It then gives a reading showing whether the subject is
“The business courses helped me to understand the gap in the market. As a biotechnologist I under the influence of a certain narcotic. This app costs just R10 to download and can be used repeatedly. Uys, who holds a BSc Honours degree in Biotechnology from UWC, has also won the South African Breweries Innovation Award. He is developing a pre-diabetic test and one that will show whether an individual has consumed alcohol in the preceding four days. “Our continent has big health problems and these little kits will help prevent various diseases. I’m now looking to the rest of the African continent to market our products,” he says. The decision to attend UWC was a simple one for Uys. “I was well aware of UWC’s brilliant science faculty – new building, sophisticated equipment and their published work. And it just so happens that the campus was within walking distance of my house.”
wanted to not only develop affordable test kits, but also to make a social impact. Founding Real World Diagnostics has allowed me to marry good business principles with scientific innovation. We develop products that people don’t just want, but health products that they need.” Uys is passionate and energetic and it has taken no small measure of courage to innovate and take risks, but his timing seems spot-on. “I believe,” says Uys, “that when deciding what career path to take, you should pursue your passion first, then the money. You need to educate yourself about different fields of study, and be persistent; don’t give up. Learn how to recognise opportunity and assess risk, then anything’s possible. It really is a wide world out there.”
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HySA Systems green technologies take centre stage The University of the Western Cape is making headlines with several of its large-scale environmentally friendly research programmes, the most recognisable being from the Hydrogen South Africa Systems Integration and Technology Validation Competence Centre, called HySA Systems.
There’s a golf cart that zips around UWC’s campus. What most people don’t know is that this cart – the first hydrogen fuel cell battery golf cart to be developed in South Africa – is just a drop in the proverbial ocean of water-emitting technologies being developed on campus. HySA Systems Competence Centre, directed by Professor Bruno G. Pollet FRSC, is hosted by UWC and its South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry (SAIAMC), and is
one of three such national centres set up by the National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Flagship Project of the Department of Science and Technology, also known as Hydrogen South Africa or HySA. HySA’s strategy is to develop and guide innovation along the hydrogen and fuel cell value chain. By and large it aims to create wealth and jobs through the establishment of new hightechnology industries based on minerals found in South Africa, especially platinum group metals (PGMs).
Since its launch in 2007, HySA Systems has gained increasing interest from national and African markets, most recently for the UWC Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) that runs on hydrogen fuel cells that doubles the achieved range of using only batteries. The role of HySA Systems in the research and development value chain is to develop hydrogen fuel cell materials, systems and demonstrators/ prototypes, and perform technology validation and system integration in two key HySA programmes: Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and Hydrogen Fuelled Vehicles (HFV).
Dr Sivakumar Pasupathi (left) and Gerhard Swart are changing the future of hydrogen technologies in South Africa and abroad.
Since its launch in 2007, HySA Systems has gained increasing interest from national and African markets, most recently for the UWC Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) – the golf cart mentioned earlier – that runs on hydrogen fuel cells that doubles the achieved range of using only batteries. The golf cart was produced in partnership with a local golf cart manufacturer, Melex Electrovehicles.
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The technology is being prepared for commercialisation, says HFV Programme Manager, Gerhard Swart. “The performance of the fuel cells is also being tested in forklifts, two and three-wheelers and a full-scale HFV emulator, the only one in the country.”
By and large HySA indirectly aims to create wealth and jobs through the establishment of new high-technology industries based on minerals found in South Africa, especially platinum group metals (PGMs). The idea, adds Swart, is to partner with national and international companies to incorporate South African technologies into their products. Fuel cells are already being used in forklifts in warehouses of large US companies. Forklifts are usually not able to maintain lengthy shifts with normal batteries, but with fuel cell technology they can operate for longer hours with much shorter refuelling times (a few minutes compared to a few hours for charging large battery packs). There is also an opportunity for the HySA programme to draw on SAIAMC’s success in manufacturing lithium-ion batteries locally. These batteries increase the achieved range of the vehicle and have a longer life, but their main appeal is a much shorter charging time than conventional lead-acid batteries. “Melex is already interested in replacing standard batteries with lithium batteries. This is an exciting opportunity to produce and apply local technology and then expand this to benefit many,” says Swart. Dr Sivakumar Pasupathi, who heads up the
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CHP programme at UWC, says the technology developed in this programme is aimed at international markets, especially Europe where homes mostly rely on natural gas for heating. Pasupathi’s research focuses on the performance and production of the components that make up a micro-CHP systems. Micro-CHP systems are larger in size and shape as well as more efficient to ordinary domestic boilers (geysers). The only difference to a standard boiler is that these micro-CHP systems can generate electricity while they are heating water. The payoff is less electricity consumption and a significant reduction in the use of fossil fuels. In the opposite corner of the SAIAMC building, a different type of green research is underway. Deputy Director of SAIAMC, Professor Bernard Bladergroen, is investigating the possibility of making energy from, well, rubbish. A recent waste audit at UWC revealed that the campus produces one tonne of food waste per month, Bladergroen reports. That is an opportunity lost, he believes.
“There is value in this waste, and we are currently working on the design of a biodigester for the campus.” This, he adds, would not only demonstrate and introduce renewable energy concepts to our students, but supply a significant portion of the cooking gas needs for the canteen. Waste not, want not. For further information about HySA Systems, please feel free to download the open access article at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. ijhydene.2013.11.116
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The unstoppable
Pennsylvania Association of Graduate Schools and Best Film awards at international festivals in the US, Canada and Russia. She was also able to complete short video courses with acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair.
Shelley Barry
In 2007 she returned to South Africa as a Carnegie scholar-in-residence at the University of the Witwatersrand where she made new films and taught experimental cinema and short fiction production. In 2008 she was the start-up programme manager for the community television station Cape Town TV.
Despite her life being torn apart by a bullet, Shelley Barry’s unstoppable talent and activism has made her one of South Africa’s most awarded filmmakers. Shelley Barry was in her twenties when a bullet fired in a taxi turf war severed her spinal cord and punctured both lungs, leaving her unable to walk and speaking through a throat tube. This did not stop her from founding Two Spinning Wheels Productions, which explores new languages in cinema, and gives marginalised voices access to the craft of filmmaking. Her decision to pursue a journey in film began while completing her Honours Degree in English at UWC during a theoretical film studies class given by Dr Loesnas and it is a journey that has taken her across the world and into the lives of people she might never otherwise have met. And now she is bringing it back to where it all began. Barry is currently piloting a project in the Women and Gender Department and the Gender Equity Unit where she trains students to make documentaries of their personal, gender-informed experiences. The project began in February and has inspired a number of students to continue
As a disability rights activist, Barry has served both the Mandela and Mbeki administrations as media manager in the office on the Status of Disabled Persons in the Presidency and as the National Parliamentary Policy Coordinator for Disabled People South Africa. She extended her expertise to television as developing their filmmaking skills. “Of course, we need funding,” Barry says. “Students use consumer cameras which we manage to translate beautifully on the big screen, but ideally we’d like professional equipment. I’ve been moved by the students’ gratitude and enthusiasm at being able to access these skills and we’d like to be able to take them further.” Barry knows the importance of learning opportunities, having been awarded a scholarship by the Ford Foundation to study towards her Master of Fine Arts in Film degree in the United States. She graduated from Temple University, Philadelphia, in 2006. Characteristically filmed from the height of her wheelchair, her films have been screened at major festivals and events around the world, garnering an Audre Lorde Award for media, a Distinguished Graduate Student Award from the
programme compliance advisor for e.tv and was based as an intern for a brief period at the BBC’s Disability Production Unit in London. Barry has served as Chief Examiner of the South African Film and Publications Board. She has also served on the board of Mediaworks, a community media organisation, and that of the Children and Broadcasting Foundation for Africa. As a result of her personal experience, she is associated with Gun Free South Africa and addressed the United Nations in 2006 during the UN review on small arms. Not surprisingly, she made the Mail & Guardian’s list of Top 100 Outstanding South African Women in 2011. “I’m driven by justice and equality. As a person with disability I’ve seen inequality and injustice firsthand. Video is not the most commerciallyviable way of making a living, but having the skills to use video as a means of activism is extremely powerful. I’ve trained women in filmmaking at the Saartjie Baartman Centre for abused women and children, and helped 17 transgender people from six African countries to tell their stories and access some healing – and I’ve seen how powerful this medium can be, particularly for the most marginalised who, traditionally, have had less representation on screen.” Barry’s latest film, Diaries of a Dissident Poet, tells the story of South African poet and writer James Matthews, who recently received his honorary doctorate from UWC. “Achievement has been the result of pursuing my passion and applying myself to learning the craft,” says Barry. “It’s extremely hard work. It’s never easy, but with the proliferation of media, the digital revolution and opening up of distribution channels, there are more exciting opportunities than ever before.”
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Crafting a democratic
constitution
worked in juvenile justice as part of her broader interest in criminal justice, evidence and criminal law, and was teaching part-time at UWC. Steytler, head of public law at the university, had been concerned mainly with administration justice and criminal justice.
“The Constitution is a very dynamic instrument,” Steytler explains. “It grows, in a sense, organically through the courts’ interpretation.” Stepping into the big boots vacated by Mabandla, who had pioneered research on women’s and children’s rights at the centre, Sloth-Nielsen familiarised herself with children’s rights, and would eventually contribute to the children’s rights clause of the new Constitution. Likewise, Steytler swiftly schooled himself in the peculiarities of constitutional design and multilevel governance, comparative federalism and local government. Since those uncertain early days, the two have become go-to scholars for constitutional design and implementation.
Right from the start, those associated with the Community Law Centre (CLC) at UWC have had dramatic career changes thrust upon them.
Brigitte Mabandla, Zola Skweyiya and Albie Sachs – were drafted in to help negotiate the Interim Constitution and craft the country’s new Bill of Rights.
In the early 1990s, shortly after its establishment, the founding staff at the CLC – the likes of the centre’s first director, Dullah Omar, the late Kader Asmal, Bulelani Ngcuka,
Following the elections in 1994, Professor Julia Sloth-Nielsen and Professor Nico Steytler, among others, were asked to assist with the drafting of a final Constitution. Sloth-Nielsen had till then
Sloth-Nielsen turned her new-found interest and expertise in children’s rights offshore, particularly to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In seeking to expand ratification of this international human rights treaty, she has worked in Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Sudan. Steytler has worked on a spectrum of issues on the powers and functions of federal and local governments. He assisted Kenya when it sought to devolve state power. He was called in to counsel on constitutional reform in Iraq. He served on a forum examining intergovernmental relations in Sudan ahead of the country’s split into two separate nations.
And he consulted on issues of cities and federalism in Brazil. Steytler describes the Constitution as the core of the entire legal system; the finer detail has to be worked out, however. “The Constitution is a very dynamic instrument,” he explains. “It grows, in a sense, organically through the courts’ interpretation.” Sloth-Nielsen and her colleagues keep an eye on children’s rights jurisprudence and the provision in the Bill of Rights. “South Africa has a leading constitutional provision on children’s rights which has been acclaimed and copied,” she says. “It has led to numerous court cases elaborating children’s rights in spheres such as sentencing of children, sentencing of parents, wearing of religious symbols at school, removal of children due to neglect, and inter-country adoption.” A recent conference marking the 20th anniversary of the adoption of South Africa’s Interim Constitution – Constitution-Building in Africa – allowed them to take a broad snapshot of the constitutional challenges ahead for the country, and for others going through the same process, like South Sudan, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
“South Africa has a leading constitutional provision on children’s rights which has been acclaimed and copied.” “It’s all very fine and well to have a constitution,” says Steytler, “but often it’s not implemented.”
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Despite not finishing his social work degree amid “bullying by authorities” on the UWC campus in the sixties, George Gibbs’ larger-than-life character, his intelligence and energy have propelled him through a career that has left in its wake better communities and uplifted lives. “I was asked to leave,” says Gibbs. “It wasn’t unusual to hear a lecturer say in those days, ‘I’m teaching coloured people to work for coloured people – isn’t that wonderful?’ We wanted a voice on campus to resist intimidation and bullying from the authorities. So I left. Didn’t get my degree. I’ve regretted it all my life.” Without a degree, Gibbs went to his former headmaster, the poet SV Petersen, at Athlone High School, and asked for a job. “He wouldn’t hear of it,” Gibbs says. “He knew my family history: my parents and grandparents had been involved in unions, community work and setting up a church. Petersen steered me instead to a pilot project in Kew Town, Athlone, called the Early Learning Centre.”
The art of giving and doing things differently
The Early Learning Centre (ELC), which promoted early childhood development in disadvantaged communities, would prove to be a learning experience and springboard for Gibbs. Working alongside Prof Richard van der Ross, it launched Gibbs on a path of more than two decades of developing community upliftment programmes. After leaving the ELC, he set up Build a Better Society (BABS), which exists to this day, before moving on to the Mobil Foundation, which had funded BABS. Later he worked for the ABSA Foundation for 17 years providing funding, partnerships and guidance to numerous
community programmes. “I’ve had the privilege of working with amazing people, legends in social and community work, influencers: people like Michael O’Dowd and Cecille Muller under whose guidance we continued to build and develop community projects.”Gibbs, a member of the Church of the Province of South Africa, was asked by then Archbishop Desmond Tutu to assist in establishing the Equal Opportunity Foundation in 1986 under the leadership of Prof Jakes Gerwel. The non-profit grant-making agency now operates in all nine provinces, focusing on empowering disadvantaged communities through partnerships in the areas of early childhood development, income-generating projects and HIV/AIDS. Gibbs has also served on the board of ELRU (Early Learning Resource Unit) since 2009, a respected advocate and capacity-building partner in the ECD sector.
George Gibbs has worked tirelessly furthering education in Western Cape communities and uplifting them, since the volatile sixties on campus at UWC to long past his retirement. “All the challenges and personal failures led me into funding, working in and for communities,” says Gibbs. “Working with teacher training, early childhood development, maths, science and technology, entrepreneurship – always looking for ways to do things differently. What my career has done for me is give me the most incredible experiences and the opportunity to work with some truly amazing people.”
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Promoting broadbased land reform The issue of land reform and its attendant questions of ownership, redress, food security and agricultural development is key to unravelling the colonial and apartheid legacy that has scarred South Africa. But the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform’s policy target of redistributing 30% of agricultural land by 2014 is not yet close to being met, and far less than 8% of agricultural land has been redistributed.
Exactly what kind of land reform we need is a debate to which senior professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), Ben Cousins, who is also the DST/NRF Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, is well placed to contribute. Under his stewardship PLAAS has become one of the foremost institutes contributing to agrarian policy debate in South Africa. Cousins notes that government policy has shifted a number of times, usually outside of a
coherent vision or clearly articulated rationale for land reform. Most recently, he says, a slew of land reform policies has been signed off with little or no public participation. These include the State Leasehold and Disposal Policy (SLDP), the Recapitalisation and Development Programme Policy (RDPP) and the Agricultural Landholding Policy Framework (ALPF). In assessing these new policies, he writes: “the new policies are inconsistent and unclear as to who the beneficiaries of land redistribution will be, but close analysis reveals a strong bias in favour of ‘emerging black commercial farmers’.” The SLDP recognises that black farmers are not a homogenous group, listing four categories, namely: 1. Households with no or very limited access to land, even for subsistence production. 2. Small-scale farmers farming for subsistence and selling part of their produce on local markets. 3. Medium-scale commercial farmers already farming commercially at a small scale and with aptitude to expand, but constrained by land and other resources. 4. Large-scale or well established commercial farmers farming at a reasonable commercial scale but disadvantaged by location, size of land and other resources or circumstances and with potential to grow. However, groups one and two, while allowed to rent state land at nominal rates, will never have the option to purchase given to groups three and four, who are allowed 30-year leases renewable for a further 20 years with a purchase option. Effectively, the poorest, and by far the
majority, of black farmers remain marginalised. Furthermore, to retain leasehold, farmers have to perform according to a business plan drawn up by agribusiness organisations or ‘partner’ with white commercial farmers.
Cousins argues that land reform policies should rather be geared to supporting marketorientated smallholder farmers operating in what he terms a ‘loose value chain’ that includes the informal market. The policy mindset is one of ‘graduating’ emerging farmers. “The implicit assumption here,” states Cousins, “is that when it comes to farming, bigger is better.” Frozen out of the equation are those who desire secure rights to well-located land for settlement and to supplement other activities. That “bigger is better” is a fallacy Cousins has uncovered through research in the Tugela Ferry area in KwaZulu-Natal where farmers with access to an irrigation scheme are able to farm commercially on plots of under one hectare. Furthermore, the plots they farm are on communal land where rights to land use are largely self-regulated. Cousins argues that land reform policies should rather be geared to supporting marketorientated smallholder farmers operating in what he terms a ‘loose value chain’ that includes the informal market. He estimates that there are about 200 000 such farmers in South Africa who, with proper support, could do much more to transform the agricultural landscape than focusing on developing an emerging black agricultural elite.
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A leader with a higher purpose
As group chief executive of the Alexander Forbes Group, Edward Kieswetter leads teams across 11 countries and two continents. Yet he remains a humble man, deeply concerned with the impact he has on others and the legacy he leaves behind.
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It has been almost 20 years since Edward Kieswetter braved the cold southeaster to study for his Masters in Cognitive Development at the University of the Western Cape. Yet he credits this time of his life not only with acquiring valuable knowledge, but shaping much of his outlook on life and work. “We lived in a time of turmoil in South Africa when I was a student. In that turbulent era of the late 1970s and 1980s, the country was on fire. So we were young people then shaping our thinking. UWC was a place where we could share and harden our resolve not to accept the labels and the oppressive system of apartheid.” Kieswetter says his generation was not only committed to political change but also to self-empowerment. “We wanted to become agents of change in our communities, to focus on learning and development, because we believed that this investment in ourselves would empower us and eventually liberate us. If you blame others for your situation, you give up the power to change it. And you can go through life blaming. Even if you are right about it, it won’t change your reality.” Kieswetter holds qualifications in electrical engineering, education, commerce, an executive MBA and is currently a PhD candidate in Counselling. He was also a Research Fellow at Harvard University in 1991. He worked at several large corporate institutions, including First National Bank (FNB) and the South African Revenue Service, before he was appointed in his Poor Man Feel It linocut by Rocky Simane.
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current position as Group Chief Executive of Alexander Forbes Limited in 2010. Kieswetter is deeply aware of the responsibilities of his many positions and the impact he has on others. He says working with people is one of the most challenging aspects of his job. “I think changing corporate culture is the hardest thing to do, but if you succeed it has the biggest impact.” Kieswetter also has very strong views on leadership. In a recent keynote address at the University of the Free State, he told the audience that leadership had to have a sense of higher purpose. “I think that if we don’t understand that at the core of it all is who we are, our basic humanity – then nothing else in life matters. To me, it is understanding not only the work of the leader but the impact of leadership. Leaders don’t have a choice about whether they will have an impact, but they do have a choice as to what that impact will be.”
“We becom wanted to chang e agents o munit e in our co f ies, mlearni ng an to focus o becau d develo n that t se we beli pment, ourse his invest eved lves w ment us and ould emp in ow ev libera entually er te us. ”
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Bad bacteria and preterm deliveries the irrefutable link Although premature deliveries remain something of a medical mystery, up to 30 percent of preterm deliveries could possibly be attributed to bacterial infections of the reproductive tract and periodontal disease. If left untreated, Mothers’ inflamed gums put unborn children at risk for preterm delivery. Endogenous infections of the maternal reproductive tract put unborn children at risk
for respiratory disorders, blindness and learning disabilities. Professor Charlene Africa of the Department of Medical Biosciences at the University of the Western Cape is exploring the links between pregnancy-associated gingivitis and periodontitis (a series of inflammatory conditions affecting the tissues and supporting structures of the teeth) and preterm deliveries (PTD). The causal relationship between these two is still being debated, but Africa is building up a body of evidence around three
of the bacteria (together known as the Red Complex: Treponema denticola, Porphyromonas gingivalis and Tannerella forsythia) thought to be responsible. Another organism of interest is the particularly aggressive Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, a bacterium strongly associated with preterm deliveries in Rwanda and other parts of Africa. To this end, Africa is currently running a largescale trial using a chair-side diagnostic kit developed in the US to test for periodontitis. Initial results indicate that the early diagnosis of gum disease during pregnancy could be used to predict PTD. Fortunately, the condition is treatable, even among pregnant women, says Africa. “Despite much controversy and apprehension from dentistry for the fear of bacteria releasing into the bloodstream, gingivitis can be treated safely during the second trimester of pregnancy,” says Africa. More recently, Africa has turned her attention to non-oral organisms that could be implicated as one of the causes in preterm low birth weight (PLBW). This National Research Foundationfunded project looks to confirm what literature suggests, that there is a link between PLBW and certain bacteria found in the vagina. These include Group B Streptococcus, Gardnerella vaginalis and Chlamydia trachomatis. “This research aims to provide information on the prevalence and molecular epidemiology of specific microbiota in pregnant women who deliver preterm and to compare the findings with mothers who deliver full term.” But despite ongoing work around identifying
the bacteria responsible, practical solutions will come from standardised diagnostic sampling, detection and treatment measures, “Diseases can never be looked at in isolation,” says Africa.
“Despite much controversy and apprehension from dentistry for the fear of bacteria releasing into the bloodstream, gingivitis can be treated safely during the second trimester of pregnancy.” Neither can the status of women’s health. In her capacity as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Science, with the gender and equity portfolio, she assists the Dean in overseeing a talent stewardship programme that identifies young black talent, particularly women who show potential, for a two-year programme that seeks to develop them to PhD level and promotion within the university. Change is happening, says Africa. “We, at UWC, now have female deans, female deputy vicechancellors, a female registrar, and who knows; maybe our new rector will be a woman!”
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Orientated to life
MEd alumnus, Ismail Teladia, guides learners toward a life of service and achievement, leading by example as both teacher and sports administrator, with a bit of World Cup action thrown into the mix. Ismail Teladia is in the business of sending learners out into the world with direction and momentum – a bit, he says, like steering a volleyball in the right direction and never letting it fall on the wrong side of the net. A veteran educator, Teladia was recently appointed as Subject Advisor for Life Orientation by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), after 30 years of teaching at Spine Road High School. It is a role that perfectly fits his life experience and desire to empower learners to make the right life and career choices. In his new position he now guides how Life Orientation is taught in Western Cape schools.
His love of sport began while studying a BEd degree at UWC from 1980 to 1984. “I served on the UWC sports committee and was a representative at SA Black Intervarsity Council meetings throughout the country with sports administrator Gus Jacobs – my foundation as an activist sports administrator.”
Among his many achievements, Teladia received the National Top Teacher: Excellence in Secondary School Teaching Award. He is president of the SA Schools Volleyball Association, provincial coordinator for the Western Cape School Sport Organisation, and commissioner of volleyball for the Confederation of School Sport Associations of Southern Africa. As a trustee of the Vuka project of the SA Rugby Legends Association (SARLA), he also faciliates rugby development at disadvantaged schools. He holds two International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) coaching certificates, as well as a Cricket SA Level 3 coaching certificate. He has coached at both provincial and international level in both sporting codes.
door-to-door pamphleteering, sitting in the amphitheatre listening and participating in emotional student debates, and deciding to take all sports clubs off campus, were all part of the conscience-based programme.”
In 1982 Teladia led the first UWC multicoded team to an intervarsity meeting at the University of the North. The intervarsity laid the platform for the revival of sport on campus. The UWC Volleyball Club, of which he is a founding member, has gone on to produce several international players.
He fondly remembers Professor Ridge’s English classes he attended with Ebrahiem Patel (now Minister of Economic Development), Jonathan De Vries and other luminaries. “Those were particularly good tutorials because of the rigorous debates we had. I haven’t forgotten that person in my psychology class, now known as Prof Pretorius, who made all of us look academically weak in comparison.”
He has done his bit for football too, as team liaison officer (TLO) for New Zealand during the 2009 Confederations Cup. “An experience of a lifetime,” says Teladia, who was the only TLO allowed to sit on the team bench during matches – as a mark of respect from the New Zealand team. Teladia’s second TLO duty for New Zealand was during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
“Dr Ajam and Prof Wally Morrow are lecturers who stood out for me. I remember Dr Wilmot James, on his return from America, with his new accent in our third-year Political Science class. I also had the honour of working with Dr Cyril Julie on my MEd and Prof Dirk Meerkotter on the PhD programme, which I am absolutely determined to complete one day.”
But it wasn’t all sport at UWC. “I learnt to speak fluent Afrikaans since most lectures were conducted in Afrikaans. Even though I came from an English medium school and battled at first with Afrikaans, I mastered the language so well that, by the time I left UWC, I was able to teach biology in the Afrikaans medium, and an Afrikaans language class in my early years of teaching.” Teladia’s time at UWC also awakened his political conscience. “Just as I started in 1980 we missed three months of lectures because of the student protests, but I was on campus every day of those three months. Doing
T Vollehe UWC y of w ball Club is a f hich he , mem oundi ng b on toer, has go inter produce ne na playetional rs.
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Mark de Klerk
trustee of two small funds for 10 years and is currently ViceChairperson of the Principal Officers Association (POA). He represents the POA on the Code for Responsible Investing in South Africa (CRISA) Committee and chairs the Sustainable Returns for Pensions and Society Project. He is often invited to speak at retirement fund conferences, locally and abroad.
The boy who never gave up Born with a genetic disorder, Anglo American Platinum Senior Manager and UWC BEcon alumnus, Mark de Klerk, is living proof that with a lot of self-belief and a little madness, anything is possible. Mark de Klerk was born with no ears or ear canals – a symptom of Treacher Collins Syndrome (TCS) – in 1961 when there was little understanding of the syndrome. At 12 months, he underwent a series of plastic surgery operations to construct his ears, which Mark refers to as “my cute little one-of-a-kind cabbages”. Just after his second birthday he received his first bone conductor hearing aid, worn with a headband. “The biggest issue my parents faced at the time,” Mark says, “was a lack of knowledge about TCS and general prejudice among the medical fraternity who thought my mother was mad because she wouldn’t have me institutionalised.” At the age of two years, Mark began attending speech therapy at the Speech and Audiology Department at the University of the Witwatersrand. One day, aged four, he was traveling along a country road, pointing out animals, when he saw a turkey and blurted out, “gobble, gobble”. “My mother and grandmother nearly drove off the road in tears because they realised I could hear and had the prospect of more words, sentences and even a normal life.”
Mark’s mother insisted that he attend a mainstream school. Mark did just fine, even playing soccer, swimming at provincial level and becoming cross-country team captain. After leaving school in 1979, he embarked on a diploma in Nature Conservation at Pretoria Technikon but did not finish. He joined Anglo American Life Assurance Company Limited in 1983 as a new business clerk. His job led to a transfer to Cape Town where he discovered UWC. The university offered undergraduate studies after hours, which meant he could study while still working. In 1987, he enrolled for a Bachelor of Economics degree and spent six years travelling from work to classes, Mondays to Thursdays. “The environment was tense on campus,” Mark remembers. “Many students and lecturers were arrested by the apartheid authorities and evening lectures came with a whiff of teargas in the air.” Nevertheless, despite the distractions, Mark graduated in 1992. “Students can be proud of UWC,” Mark says. “It’s a world-class learning environment. When I was there in the late ‘80s it was a beacon of light. I considered Prof Nicky Morgan as my main mentor during my time of studies.” Since 2001, Mark has been the Senior Manager: Retirement Funds and principal executive officer at Anglo American Platinum. He has also served as an independent
In 2007, with persistent pain from the hearing aid headband, Mark decided to go ahead with a bone anchored hearing aid (BAHA). “In June 2008, I had my first switch on of the BAHA. Wow, what an experience! So many new sounds and noises – a truly lifechanging experience.”
“Stu prou dents ca d worl of UWC n be d-cla . It’s envir s a onm s lear nin ent. g I was Whe t h e n r late ‘80s e in the i beac on o t was a f ligh t.”
Mark has decided to help others with TCS or those about to have a BAHA. He has established a BAHA Facebook support group. “My challenge is to spend more time helping those with TCS and people who wear BAHAs. I had the determination of a ‘mad, lunatic’ mother, caring parents and a supportive family, but also had to develop a pick-myselfup attitude and learn from my mistakes. Life is not without its ups and downs – hours of loneliness, lots of tears and hurt, and it is not without ridicule and teasing. But it is what you choose it to be. You have to believe in yourself and never give up.”
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UWC salutes
Nelson Mandela
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The University of the Western Cape is deeply saddened by the passing of President Nelson Mandela. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, his children and grand-children as we mourn the loss of a remarkable South African with the rest of the world. For the University of the Western Cape, honouring Nelson Mandela brings back many memories as the University had a very specific relationship with Nelson Mandela and the movement that made him. He will be remembered for being a resistance fighter, a political prisoner, a political leader and president of our counrty. He is also fondly remembered as an esteemed member of the convocation of UWC, as an honorary doctoral graduate. UWC was in fact the first South African university to award him an honorary doctorate. Substantial traces of Mandela’s life as resistance leader, prisoner and president have defined and shaped UWC as an institution of higher learning committed to the ideals of democracy, social transformation and non-racialism. During the 1970s and 1980s, UWC played a crucial role in the campaigns to secure the release of political prisoners in South Africa. Its faculty and students were critical to the political conscientisation of the people of Cape Town and its rural hinterland. There is a genealogy of political and cultural formations at UWC that can be directly traced to the liberation struggle in South Africa, and the subsequent period of governance of a democratic society. In the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Professor Jakes Gerwel, UWC openly defied the apartheid university policies by declaring itself as an intellectual home for the democratic left that openly sided with the struggles of the oppressed and exploited masses. Within this framework, sectoral organisations among students, workers and
academics were created to deepen understanding of apartheid’s repression and the struggles to overturn its tyranny. Through the work of service organisations at the University, the resources of academic life were put at the disposal of a growing mass political movement. Among these were organisations such as UWCADE, ERIP, Workers’ College, the Centre for Southern African Studies, student movements from across the political spectrum and associations of adult educators. The classrooms at UWC were transformed into a terrain of debate and struggle with the emergence of approaches to people’s history and people’s education. The appointment of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as the Chancellor of the University signalled that the University was a place that valued iconic leaders whose work were also marked by a sense of humility as well as an attachment to the collective ethics of justice that had been forged in a liberation movement. UWC adopted a stance of connecting excellence in leadership with a commitment to service. As the anti-apartheid struggle was giving way to the transition to democracy, UWC’s resources of resistance were turned into a platform of preparing to govern. Professor Gerwel initiated the moves to bring the exiled resistance movements’ archives home and UWC was identified as the most appropriate location for the archives that would potentially serve as a basis for a museum of apartheid and resistance. The relocation of the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) collection of artefacts and documents to UWC and the creation of the Mayibuye Centre to house them placed the international campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela at the heart of UWC’s transformation process and the University’s relationship to the South African nation. The return of the IDAF collection was accompanied by the assembly of leading intellectuals and
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educators associated with the broad liberation movement at UWC.
Substantial traces of Mandela’s life as resistance leader, prisoner and president have defined and shaped UWC as an institution of higher learning committed to the ideals of democracy, social transformation and non-racialism. UWC was the primary location where Nelson Mandela’s government-in-waiting prepared to govern. It was at UWC that some of the major work took place that culminated in the fashioning of the South African Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and national policies in arts and culture, international relations and education. It was at UWC where all these ideas and policies were deliberated and formed into a plan for the transition from apartheid to democracy. The central position of UWC in the national debate on transformation resulted in several leading figures occupying the University’s classrooms, seminar spaces and policy thinktanks, translating these debates into larger public discussions on the future of a democratic South Africa. Upon his release, Nelson Mandela called on several intellectuals based at UWC to help guide the unfolding negotiation process. Key among these were Advocate Dullah Omar, Professor Kader Asmal, Justice Albie Sachs, Brigitte Mabandla, Zola Skweyiya, Professor Rob Davies, Advocate Yvonne Mokgoro, Professor Harold Wolpe, and the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jakes Gerwel. After the first democratic elections, Nelson Mandela again drew on expertise at UWC
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to oversee the transformation of key sectors of the South African state at both national and provincial levels. This process was epitomised by Omar and Asmal being drawn into the executive of the South African government as cabinet ministers in the first democratic government under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. When UWC awarded an honorary doctorate to Nelson Mandela on 28 November 1990, it wished to acknowledge the consequences of his political vision for educational transformation that had been at the very core of UWC’s effort to transcend the burden of apartheid education. It also wished to pay tribute to his ideals of service and ethical leadership that fuelled the struggles against apartheid. Nelson Mandela’s relationship to UWC has been epitomised by the longstanding relationship that developed between our university and the Robben Island Museum, and the efforts of the University community to work towards undoing the legacies of apartheid. It is in this spirit that we again honour the life and contributions of Nelson Mandela. The commitments that have shaped our ongoing process of building a post-apartheid university that remains true to the struggle for democracy and non-racialism lie at the heart of the events marking our ten days of mourning. As well as providing a space for tribute and mourning, UWC invites students, staff and fellow South Africans to view the Nelson Mandela exhibition in the foyer of the Main Hall and to visit the RIM UWC Mayibuye Archives to reflect on the meaning of Nelson Mandela and his commitment towards building a post-apartheid future. University of the Western Cape Rector & Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian O’Connell
Prof Jakes Gerwel and Madiba
Mrs Judith O’Connell and Prof Brian O’Connell with Madiba
Archbishop Tutu and Madiba
Archbishop Tutu and Madiba, 1994
Prof Jakes Gerwel and Madiba
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MU-UWC partnership
to preserve ISLAND DOCUMENTS The University of Missouri (MU) College of Education will partner with the University of the Western Cape and Robben Island Museum to preserve thousands of historical papers, photographs and items related to the political prisoners held at Robben Island. The memorandum of understanding was signed on 2 December.
Thomas Kochtanek, associate professor in the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies at MU, says MU had collaborated on several projects with UWC since 1986. “This project is entirely new. It began out of that long-term relationship between the universities, percolated over the past year and resulted in the crafting of a memorandum of understanding between the two universities to pursue the project,” says Kochtanek. “This is really an access project; we’re going to provide access to documents that otherwise you would never be able to see unless you would get in an airplane, fly for 24 hours to South Africa and make an appointment to see these documents, which are pretty special,” says Kochtanek. Kochtanek says UWC would handle the primary documents – the paper, photos, videos – all the things in the archives that were memorable. He said while UWC was preserving those artefacts, it would scan them, and that was where MU would take over. “The expertise at Mizzou [MU] is digital curation
… Mizzou’s task is to make sure we adhere to international standards for the exchange of pictures, videos and so forth and design a really cool website,” says Kochtanek. Kochtanek said the content, which included hundreds of thousands of pages of historical papers and about 120 000 photos, belonged to the Robben Island Museum. Kochtanek says the project would take a couple of years but would be worth the work. “These are treasures and resources, and it’s all classics, and all of this material was underground until democracy prevailed. This is really a story of democracy and the struggle through the apartheid era,” says Kochtanek. “While the loss of Mandela has saddened everyone, Mandela’s legacy of reconciliation and forgiveness, towards the vision of the ‘rainbow’ nation, will live on in this way,” Daniel Clay, dean of the MU College of Education, said in a prepared statement. Clay said he was proud to continue a working relationship with UWC, adding that their partnership was the first ever between a U.S. university and a “non-white” South African university.
This is an edited version of an article published in the 9 December 2013 edition of the Columbia Daily Tribune. Original Story link: http://www.columbiatribune.com/a/rop/ mu-has-role-in-mandela-projectmu-with-south-african-school/ article_669f046e-6105-11e3-ad55-0604b9f6eda.html
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UWC’s Greatest
Alumnus Twenty-three years ago, on 28 November 1990, one of the most significant public events in the history of UWC took place, when the newly inaugurated first president of democratic South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, was awarded an honorary doctrate. In memory of one of Africa’s greatest sons, below is the description of the event as reported in the Campus Bulletin produced by the UWC Public Affairs Department at the time. More than 4 000 people cheered, applauded and toyi-toyied as Mr Nelson Mandela, deputy president of the ANC, was made an honorary doctor of laws in the ceremony at UWC. Arriving guests were greeted by a university square decorated in festive manner, table and chairs facing towards the library steps where a stage had been erected for the concert and party afterwards. Above it was a banner reading “Towards a People’s University”. Giant ANC banners had been draped over the main pillars outside the Great Hall. Security was tight, ANC cadres and UWC marshals checking the bags of everyone
entering the hall and requiring the audience to pass through metal detectors. Some, neatly dressed for the occasion, paced around nervously, asking guests for spare invitations. When one succeeded in obtaining an invitation, his spontaneous reaction was: “Somewhere out there somebody loves me!” Others who had tickets for the auxiliary venues tried desperately to bluff their way past ushers, so that they would be able to see Mandela in the flesh. At the entrance to the Main Hall security staff had their hands full with cameras which had to be collected as photography by private individuals was not allowed inside. During a pre-ceremony photo session photographers were not allowed within five metres of Mandela, resplendent in blue and grey satin gown and velvet cap. About 2 000 invited guests crowded into the university’s Great Hall, while about the same number watched the proceedings on giant television monitors outside. The procession for the first time ever included community figures, such as the ANC’s Reg September and Pallo Jordan.
When Mandela finally entered the hall, the waiting assembly rose as one in spontaneous welcome, to which the ANC leader responded with warm waves and a huge grin. And, at the long-awaited capping of Mandela by UWC Chancellor Archbishop Desmond Tutu, UWC became the first South African university to confer an honorary doctorate on Mandela. UWC’s Creative Arts Choir gave two performances. One of the pieces was dedicated to Mandela and left the leader obviously touched. When the Chancellor called for a freedom song there was no hesitation from the audience.
Arts Dean Prof Ridge, President Nelson Mandela and Faculty of Law Dean Prof Smit
People toyi-toyied down the aisles, showing their respect for a person who had pledged his life to fighting apartheid. The warmth of the entire ceremony was also reflected during a praise poem to Mandela, moving the university’s newest alumnus to chuckle several times.
Madiba giving a speech at UWC
The tight security delayed the start of the ceremony by 45 minutes but the Chancellor, declaring the congregation of the university open, said people should stop looking at their watches. To applause and laughter he said, “We’re in Africa now.” After the ceremony and a private party in a staff dining room, a jazz concert featuring Abdullah “Dollar Brand”Ibrahim, Monty Weber, Robbie Jansen and Basil Coetzee kept guests entertained with a tribute to Mandela which stretched well past midnight.
Madiba being congratulated by Prof Jakes Gerwel
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Leading Botswana’s biggest sports extravaganza ever
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Sport and Recreation graduate, Tuelo Serufho, is putting his skills to good use organising the African Youth Games in Botswana in 2014. Countries that host global sporting events usually have about four years to prepare. Tuelo Serufho was given only 14 months to organise an event that promises to give Botswana the grandest of stages to showcase her capabilities to the rest of the world – the second African Youth Games in 2014, known as Gaborone 2014. Gaborone 2014 will serve as a qualifier for the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games and will involve 2 500 athletes from 54 countries who will be participating in approximately 22 sporting codes. Representatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), international and continental sport federations, talent scouts from all over the world and international media and spectators are set to flood the country. If hosted successfully, the games will catapult Botswana into the international sporting arena. UWC alumnus Serufho has worn two hats since June last year: that of chief executive officer of the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) and the Botswana African Youth Games Organising Committee (BAYGOC). “We will not deliver mediocrity,” is Serufho’s response to the mammoth task that lies ahead of him. “It means many sleepless nights, but we have a committed board and secretariat, and the whole of Botswana is behind us.” A former tennis player, coach and administrator as well as General Manager of Botswana Games and Research and Projects Officer at the Botswana National Sports Council, Serufho began his tenure as CEO of the BNOC in 2010 with the objective to “ultimately create a conducive environment in which sportspeople can excel”. He says that his time at UWC was very useful because it taught him excellence in the delivery of sports management by enhancing his knowledge and performance. “This has led to me being
given greater responsibility to deliver the same excellence over time.” “UWC specifically infuses theoretical components into practice. We had to engage in certain practical activities towards our credits, so when I was put into real work situations, it was an easier transition from theory to practice.” Along with hard work and grace under pressure, Serufho augmented his BA Sport and Recreation degree obtained from UWC with an Executive Masters in Sport Management Organisation from the University of Poitiers, France. The opportunity to play, coach and administer sport has taken him from the small Botswana mining town of SelebiPhikwe where he was raised to Cape Town, most of Africa and the rest of the world. His first experience of Cape Town – during his time as a student at UWC – was an experience he will never forget. “There were trains that transported people to and from work unlike in my capital city,” says Serufho. “The place was so much bigger. I had to contend with apartment living; so many people, all the places to eat. I loved the sea.” As someone who has achieved much in so short a time, Serufho’s recipe for success has three key ingredients – vision, consistency and communication. “Ensure you have a clear vision; that must always be the starting point. Then be consistent with this vision and do not be tempted to move the goalposts. Lastly, communicate the vision as often as you can, to as many as possible, making use of all the channels at your disposal. Selling your vision and plans to people, and being clear about the roles they must play, makes it easier for them to support you. It also encourages transparency and good governance principles.”
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Humanities
Charged and ready to create opportunities Despite what Director of the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) Professor Premesh Lalu unequivocally calls a “national predicament in the humanities”, the University of the Western Cape’s Faculty of Arts has managed to host renowned international scholars and produce a number of influential publications this year.
In conjunction with UCT the CHR also hosted Partha Chatterjee from Columbia University. Chatterjee has authored a number of books including The Black Hole of Empire and The Politics of the Governed. And finally, the CHR hosted Professor Naomi Scheman, a philosopher from the University of Minnesota and Richa Nagar, from the Centre for Advanced Feminist Studies at the same institution.
The Winter School was particularly successful, against a backdrop of “a tendency to under-develop the humanities” on a national and international level.
The CHR has continually revisited several questions: what does it mean to form a concept of post-apartheid; what does it mean to elaborate, to think it through, to think its limits and its possibilities?
The crisis does not only involve funding, explains Lalu, but consists of under-development and excessive student numbers, resulting in staff to student ratios that are “educationally unsound” at some universities. Yet there are academics such as those working in UWC’s Arts Faculty and at the CHR who keep the humanities alive despite the pressures they face. Lalu has been asked to speak at the international Consortium for Humanities Centres and Institutes (CHCI). The CHCI president Ian Baucom visited the CHR in September. Baucom, says Lalu, was aiming to bring the CHCI annual meeting to South Africa as they are “very, very keen” about the way scholars have responded to the demand of building a post-apartheid concept of the humanities. Important publications emanating from the Centre and the Faculty include Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Duncan Brown’s Are Trout South African?, The Hard Road to Reform by research fellow Brian Raftopolous, the editing of a book
Among the scholars at the Winter School were Professor John Mowitt from Leeds University and Sanil Visalamanaskan, a philosopher from the Indian Institute of Technology who publishes under a pseudonym to bypass Indian caste discrimination. Arunima Gopinath from Jawarharlal Nehru University and Marrissa Moorman from Indiana University, together with faculty members from UWC, added to the Winter School debates.
Artwork by Sophie Peters from the CAP Collection.
“We don’t believe transformation can happen through a rearrangement of the deck chairs. It has to happen through a rethinking of the very questions and thought that animate the university,” says Lalu.
on Zimbabwean politics and Zebra Crossings by Meg van der Merwe in the English Department. Linguistics professor Christopher Stroud’s paper Multilingualism in a Post-apartheid Humanities is another achievement, among others. The CHR hosted important international scholars at the Winter School which had 60 delegates from India, United Kingdom, United States and South Africa, and included a five-day retreat on the theme “Acts to Ground” focusing on the politics of the humanities.
CHR/Handspring Trust/Net vir Pret and Magpie Art Collective Project at the Barrydale Festival.
As UWC does not have a gallery or art department, partnerships, whereby faculty members serve on boards such as the District Six Museum, Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, Iziko and Robben Island Museums, enable the faculty to, for example, host the exhibition of works from the Community Arts Project (CAP). “What we’ve discovered is that we do have something to say about the arts and that our students are very enthused by the fact that they can say something in the space that was ordinarily not available to large numbers of people in this country,” says Lalu. The CHR was given the opportunity to host the ministerial project on hidden voices in arts and music and has appointed three artists in residence: musician Neo Muyanga, who is working with the collections of the Mayibuye Archive on a project called Aesthetics of a Liberation Song; Mongi Mthombeni, a member of the Handspring Puppet company who is facilitating work in Barrydale and Masiphumelele; and Emile Maurice, curator of the CAP art collection, who has just completed an exhibition on the Mandela Collections at the Mayibuye Centre with Mark van Niekerk.
“We don’t believe transformation can happen through a rearrangement of the deck chairs. It has to happen through a rethinking of the very questions and thought that animate the university.” “The humanities are disciplines that take the senses very seriously,” says Lalu. “Apartheid tried to lull us into submission, to destroy our senses, to make us comfortably numb – and that is something one must avoid. Our senses must be alert and ready to not only grasp opportunities, but to create them.”
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New BEd to tease out SA’s web of education issues
Education and Training (FET) teaching. Project coordinator Dr Vuyokazi Nomlomo said that the rationale behind the decision to offer the degree is to increase the number of teachers who can teach in the Foundation Phase through the medium of African languages. “There are simply not enough teachers who can teach in these languages”, says Nomlomo, “and those who can are all nearing retirement age.” Setting up the curriculum for a new four-year degree is a massive task, especially within a timeframe of three years, which was the DHET’s brief. Fortunately, the DHET and EU also called for the five institutions that were to offer the Foundation Phase degree to form coalitions. UWC partnered with Rhodes University, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and Walter Sisulu University to form a Cape consortium to share resources in developing the programme. NMMU is the only one of the four universities that offers a BEd degree for the Foundation Phase, but is to review its current programme in order to align with the DHET’s new Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualification (MRTEQ).
The Faculty of Education will soon offer a new degree which it hopes will assist in tackling South Africa’s failing education standards. Following a collaboration between the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and the European Union (EU) in 2011, which identified the need to increase the number of institutions in South Africa offering
Bachelor of Education degrees for Foundation Phase (Grades R - 3) teaching from the current 13 to 18, UWC has been preparing a curriculum programme to offer the degree from 2015. This would be the first time the four-year degree is offered at UWC, where the Education Faculty currently offers a BEd for Senior Phase (Grades 7-9), as well as a oneyear Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) for graduates wishing to enter Further
The consortium meets each term, says Nomlomo, to discuss issues such as the aim of creating a research-driven programme and aspects of materials development aimed at children from communities with limited resources who speak an African language. Developing the programme involves considering issues such as the quality of education and whether learners are exposed to meaningful learning. Along with materials
development and the question of identity – who are our teachers? – these make up “the four pillars” of the programme design. As part of the process of programme development, UWC has asked two postgraduate students to research literacy, numeracy and life skills in schools. Although three years to develop a new programme is extremely tight, UWC is ahead of the other universities in the consortium, having already designed the curriculum, which is awaiting review by the Senate. While the intention of the DHET and the EU is to have more African language teachers for Foundation Phase, UWC will not exclude English and Afrikaans students, but will aim to have a minimum of half the students undertaking a BEd in 2015 being African language speakers.
Setting up the curriculum for a new four-year degree is a massive task, especially within a timeframe of three years, which was the DHET’s brief. With research being one of the programme foci, the faculty would ideally like to have a Foundation Phase school situated on campus, as is the case with the University of Johannesburg, but in the meantime will use available resources such as the campus crèche. And in line with UWC’s vision, the faculty intends to create reflective students who are able to see a connection between theory and practice in the classroom and tease out the complex web of issues affecting the standard of education in South Africa.
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A PIONEER FOR TRANSFORMATION As a top corporate lawyer, UWC law graduate Brent Williams strongly believes in giving back to the community and helping others – as he himself has benefited from opportunities presented to him. Brent Williams’s journey has taken him from a determined student activist in the mid-1980s and UWC law graduate in the early 1990s to his current position as Chief Executive Officer of Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (CDH). As the first black lawyer to be appointed at this level at any of the top large law firms in South Africa, he is regarded as a pioneer for transformation. Williams was appointed as CEO in April 2011 and he acknowledges that while transformation is not the only area of focus for him as managing partner, it is an important part of his work. “From a philosophical perspective, I have always championed human rights and the utilisation or leverage of the law to achieve fundamental change.” His interest in corporate and commercial law stemmed from a desire to contribute to equitable participation in the South African
economy. He says shaping behaviour and corporate culture towards increased inclusivity while simultaneously leading a large law firm in an extremely competitive and rapidly globalising environment have been among his biggest challenges. “It’s been a challenging but rewarding journey so far.” His hard work has certainly paid off. Williams was listed as Best Lawyer in Mergers and Acquisitions Law by Best Lawyers International 2013 (South Africa). The Legal 500 EMEA series 2012 recommended Williams for the list in Corporate Law, Mergers and Acquisitions Law for his “attention to detail” and “depth of knowledge”.
“From a philosophical perspective, I have always championed human rights and the utilisation or leverage of the law to achieve fundamental change.” Despite many accolades, Williams has not forgotten his roots. He remembers fondly: “In the late 1980s UWC was a vibrant place to study and as a black student coming from UCT as an undergraduate, arriving at UWC was in a sense like coming home.” Williams also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from UCT and a Master of Law degree from Harvard Law School. Prior to his current role as the managing partner of CDH he was a director in CDH’s corporate and commercial practice advising on all aspects of South African corporate and commercial law, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate
finance and broad-based black economic empowerment transactions and related regulatory aspects. He says he is impressed by the achievements of the university. “UWC has several challenges – it simply does not have the resources that bigger established universities have, so the playing field is not level. It is incumbent on alumni, such as myself, to help the university and its graduates.” This he does by ensuring that each year CDH runs a recruitment campaign at UWC and hires some of UWC’s law graduates; not only for the sake of the university but also because of the quality and calibre of its law graduates.
“In the late 1980s UWC was a vibrant place to study and as a black student coming from UCT as an undergraduate, arriving at UWC was in a sense like coming home.”
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Health system
weighed down by NCDs There are growing concerns that chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – which include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer – are on the rise. This was confirmed by a paper in the South African Health Review 2012/13, that describes NCDs as “major contributors to preventable disease and premature mortality” in South Africa. According to the paper, NCDs account for an estimated 37% of all-cause mortality (a statistical measure of the annual number of deaths in a given age group in the population), and 16% of disability-adjusted life years, defined as the number of years lost due to ill health, disability or early death.
Khayelitsha, Cape Town, with community health workers associated with non-governmental organisations such as the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA), to develop and implement interventions for the prevention of NCDs in the township. Among other measures, they encouraged residents to eat healthily and cut back on their salt intake, be more physically active and quit smoking. Projects like these paid off in real terms, Puoane reports, as there were measurable increases in knowledge and a drop in participants’ body weights.
“NCDs can deepen poverty, reduce economic productivity, and strain an already underresourced healthcare system,” the authors pointed out. “This burden is increasing in many countries that still suffer widespread infectious diseases, resulting in a double burden of disease.”
As Puoane learnt in Khayelitsha, and as reflected in the South African Health Review paper, the solution is multilayered. Take for instance genetic predispositions to certain conditions. Indian South Africans, for example, are more susceptible to insulin resistance than other ethnic groups. And one out of 72 Afrikaners has an increased risk for ischaemic heart disease, characterised by a reduced blood supply to the organ, because of a genetic disorder. In such cases, genetic testing and counselling programmes can contribute significantly to the identification, prevention and management of NCDs.
One of the authors of the paper, Professor Thandi Puoane of the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, was among those who spotted the threat early. Puoane trained as a nurse and worked on NCDs in local communities from 2002. She worked in
Compared to genetic causes, the more behavioural determinants are easier to address. These include tobacco use, alcohol misuse, obesity and physical inactivity, all of which can be changed with the right education programmes, aimed at both adults and children.
Prof Thandi Puoane is among those trying to stem the tide of non-communicable diseases in South Africa.
But less simple are the social (working and living) and structural/environmental factors that shape individual behaviour. Among these determinants are employment, poverty, education, accommodation, socio-economic status, the marketing of unhealthy products and the food environment, and even cultural factors, such as the perception among many women in South Africa that a fuller figure is more attractive and a sign of affluence. Puoane is weighing up this interplay of determinants in a new study in which she is tracking the many risk factors associated with NCDs among rural and urban men and women between the ages of 35 - 70. She expects a few surprises in her findings; such as that the increase in fast-food and supermarket chains in rural areas may be changing the food choices of people there.
This study demonstrates, says Puoane, that any holistic remedy lies beyond educating individuals about the virtues of healthy eating and physical activity. Policy is needed to set the right tone, and should cover everything from the advent of fast foods to food labelling and tuck shops at schools.
“Non-communicable diseases can deepen poverty, reduce economic productivity, and strain an already underresourced healthcare system.” “You can’t change people if you don’t change their environment,” says Puoane.
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LAND REFORM
A CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE
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“Land reform is much more than just a question of how to get land.” It calls, rather, for wideranging changes in how land is held, used, farm sizes, agricultural support and market access – in other words, agrarian reform, says Associate Professor Ruth Hall, of the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape. When she joined PLAAS in 2002, Hall set out to inform new strategies and comment on current ones to overcome rural poverty, homing in on areas such as farm worker rights, land tenure reform, agricultural development and the commercialisation of land. It’s not always easy being a
were co-hosted by PLAAS, Hall and others heard farmers’ stories of disempowerment and dispossession as their own farming made way for commercial activity, following government deals with investors.
researcher who comments on government policy, she says – monitoring and analysing government programmes requires producing information that is in the public interest – and it is not always well received by government. At times she has worked on projects with government departments, providing advice or participating in joint research and at other times, acted as an expert witness in land claims cases, challenging government positions.
Clearly foreign investors recognise Africa’s agricultural potential. Couple that with a shift towards large-scale commercialisation of farms and somehow the opportunities for millions of black smallholder farmers to increase production and create much-needed jobs has been overlooked. As in South Africa, “there are contradictions between land and agricultural policies,” Hall says.
Today, governments may present land as vacant to entice foreign investors, while the land may actually belong, under customary tenure, to the communities who work it.
More recently, Hall has become interested in multinational agribusiness, as foreign commercial investments have been growing rapidly across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Today,
governments may present land as vacant to entice foreign investors, while the land may actually belong, under customary tenure, to the communities who work it. Understandably, not everyone agrees with this new land rush. At the recent PanAfrican Parliament Land Hearings, which
Hall coordinates the contribution of PLAAS to the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI), a global platform to generate evidence on the land grab phenomenon through field-based research. She is also Regional Coordinator of the Future Agricultures Consortium, an Africa-based alliance of academic researchers seeking improved agricultural policy and practice in Africa. There’s barely a facet of land reform she and PLAAS haven’t touched on, and since PLAAS strives to make a direct impact on agrarian reform, it is working with academic and NGO partners to undertake policy-relevant research and engage with civil society groups and governments in South Africa and several other African countries.
INVESTING in the FUTURE
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Nationally, universities are under pressure to accommodate increasing student numbers. UWC, for example, has increased its student enrolment from fewer than 10 000 in the year 2000, to approximately 21 000 students in 2013. The growth in student numbers has had a huge impact on infrastructure development. The University’s Institutional Operating Plan (IOP) sets out the high-level strategic development for the 2010 – 2014 period. It includes a number of strategies that focus on the physical development of the campus and its surrounding areas. The University’s planners have devoted considerable time to investigating the possibilities for the further extension of the campus. In recent years, with financial support from the national Department for Higher Education and Training and other funders, UWC has completed a number of large building projects, which have considerably expanded and improved the physical campus environment. Chemical Sciences building The Chemical Sciences building constitutes the third phase of the development of the new Science precinct. The building was completed at the end of 2013 and will be fully operational early in 2014. This development adds close to 9 000 additional assignable square metres (ASM) of available space for academic activities. The building will be home to the department of Applied Geology as well as the department of Chemistry with undergraduate teaching
laboratories as well as postgraduate research laboratories. ResLife Centre In May 2013 we completed the ResLife Centre development, which provides a cafeteria, coffee shop and lounge as well as offices for residence administration and student leadership structures. This beautiful development overlooks the cricket oval with Table Mountain as a backdrop. New swimming pool In addition to the University’s covered and heated Olympic-sized (50m) swimming pool, a 25m water polo pool has been constructed. The new pool meets the standards for short-course swimming competitions and also allows for the large pool to be used for competitions, because swimmers now have a separate pool where they can warm up and down before and after events. The new pool enabled UWC to host the University Sport South Africa (USSA) water polo competition in December 2012.
Chemical Sciences building
Large modern gym planned for stadium
Stadium upgrade
New swimming pool
Education Faculty
New residences
New Residences New residences have been developed on campus through a public private partnership. The third phase of the residential development will be completed early in 2014, providing on-campus accommodation for an additional 1 100 students. Stadium Upgrade project The UWC Sports Stadium upgrade project went out on tender in 2013 and a contractor was appointed in December 2013. This project, which starts in January
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2014, will extend and upgrade the existing stadium complex. The new roof structure will allow the current roof space to be converted into a larger, modern gymnasium. The ground floor will also be redesigned to allow for more flexible use of the space. Recycling old space for new use The spaces vacated by departments that are now housed in the Life Sciences building will be renovated and extended to accommodate the departments of Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science and Information Systems that will form the new Computational and Mathematical Sciences precinct. The architects and other principal professionals were appointed in 2013 and the project should go out on tender early in 2014. Education Once the departments of Computer Science, Statistics and Mathematics have moved to their new facilities, their current areas, together with space vacated by the Chemistry department, will allow the consolidation of the Education Faculty (currently located in various areas across campus) into a single precinct. The vacated facilities will be re-designed and renovated for use by the Education Faculty. Dentistry at Tygerberg Hospital The Dentistry building at the Tygerberg Hospital complex has been extended to provide a new waiting area for patients, some additional offices as well as a recreational area for students next to the faculty’s resource centre on the top floor. The building is quite old and will require substantial maintenance and upgrading over the next few years. UWC moving into the heart of Bellville For many years, UWC operated within the
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confines of the main campus with the Dentistry Faculty being the only faculty located offcampus (operating from the Mitchell’s Plain dental hospital since the 1980s). Following the incorporation of the Stellenbosch School of Oral Health into UWC’s Faculty of Dentistry in 2004, which included UWC taking ownership of the Dental Hospital at the Tygerberg Hospital complex, UWC found itself with two satellite campuses. UWC has acquired a former hospital building in the Bellville central business district and the renovation and extension of this building will start in the second half of 2014. The UWC School of Nursing and the departments of Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Natural Medicine will move to the new facility, bringing these departments closer to the communities that they serve. The University not only strives to provide the public and social amenities for students that are normally associated with university environments, but is committed to developments that can harness the academic potential of the area. In addition to UWC and CPUT, the Stellenbosch University medical campus is located at the Tygerberg Hospital, their business school is in Bellville and the Medical Research Council is also in close proximity. The proximity of these institutions provides a unique opportunity for new relationships between academics, commerce and industry. Following the declaration of the Bellville area as a Central Improvement District by the City of Cape Town, a Greater Tygerberg Partnership was established to focus on the future development of the area. UWC has a seat on the board of the Partnership through which it will continue its efforts to improve the sub-region to better serve our students and our surrounding communities.
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head of an organisation that is responsible
for people to be less academically restricted.
for education and training qualification
“We need a foundation to be able to create
standards in the country.
more meaningful connections. For example, if a technologist wants to become an engineer, a
A victim mentality was not encouraged at
pathway should be available for that,”
UWC, and remains an anathema to Samuels.
he says.
“In those struggle years the idea was promoted that you really had to work hard.
Course design should reflect the different
It didn’t matter what happened around you,
connections and pathways so that we begin
you were compelled to focus on what you
to develop a culture of articulation. Staff
were doing and deliver on it.”
development is also something Samuels sees as of vital importance. “South Africa must
The teaching and research at UWC was
create learning opportunities for people in
then, as now, geared toward transforming
the workplace. We need to cultivate a
society. Professor Shirley Walters had a huge
culture of learning in our workplace in order
influence on him as a graduate student and
to make progress.”
colleague, he says. “The key thing I learnt from her was how you need to come to an issue with something clearly analysed and evidence-based.”
Steering education to justice The ideological influence of Black Consciousness that Joseph Samuels, a UWC alumnus and CEO of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), discovered at UWC in the ‘70s, taught him about non-racialism and still remains an influence on his life and work.
This is translated into his approach at SAQA Although his enrolment at UWC for a BSc
with regard to Recognition of Prior Learning
in 1976 was under duress as there were no
(RPL) as it “gives people a chance, recognises
other options for university study open to
what they have learnt”, a process that analyses
him as a person classified as “coloured” by
what people know, with evidence to back it
the apartheid state, he soon came to realise
up. It is a tool for recognising that learning
that UWC was not quite the conservative
can really be empowering, ensuring people are
apartheid-supporting institution he feared it
accredited for what they have learnt informally
would be.
rather than forcing them to spend time and money on learning what they already know.
Samuels, who had to leave his home town of Port Elizabeth to further his studies, says UWC
Samuels supports career advice centres as they
was a huge influence in his life. “I came to
assist students to make choices that will work
understand broader issues.”
best for them. He is also in favour of articulation, which opens up opportunities for progression by
The “quest for justice” that he absorbed
breaking through the silo mentality that affects
remains a motivating factor of his focus as
much of higher education, making it possible
Samuels, who had to leave his home town of Port Elizabeth to further his studies, says UWC was “a huge influence” in his life. “I came to understand broader issues.” Interestingly, Samuels took over the reins at SAQA from another UWC alumnus, Samuel Isaacs, who led the organisation for 15 years till his retirement in February 2012. Samuels took over as CEO after working as Isaacs’s deputy for seven years. “I learnt such a lot from him, he was an absolute role model.” Isaacs is an Honorary Professor in Lifelong Learning, contributing to the Leaders for Learning course run by Professor Shirley Walters.
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University of the Western Cape (UWC) rugby club member, Mthetheleli ‘Tazz’ Fuzani, was selected for the Western Province Currie Cup team and rewarded with the August 2013 UWC Athlete of the Month accolade.
produces more stars
UWC rugby
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Mthetheleli Godfrey ‘Tazz’ Fuzani, played six matches for Western Province during the 2013 Vodacom Cup after
coming up through the rugby ranks at the University of the Western Cape. Fuzani was given the award by the Department of Sports Administration, which honours the achievements of outstanding sportspeople as part of the Athlete Support Programme. The lock produced several sterling performances in the Varsity Shield competition, which assisted the UWC side to reach the final in April. UWC
Rugby Director Peter de Villiers says Fuzani is one of many UWC players that have the potential to play top-level rugby. De Villiers says Fuzani didn’t believe him when he predicted that Fuzani would play for Western Province in 2013. The rugby director mentions that Fuzani has
what it takes to play Currie Cup rugby. “His defence is brilliant and when he cleans you out at the ruck you’re likely not to remember your second name,” he says. De Villiers says it’s important for Fuzani to receive the right guidance in order to build up his confidence as he still has lots to learn.
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Dr Danny Jordaan elected President of the South African Football Association UWC Alumnus Daniel Alexander Jordaan was elected as President of the South African Football Association (SAFA) at its elective congress held in September. Jordaan beat Mandla ‘Shoes’ Mazibuko for the top spot and will replace outgoing president Kirsten Nemantandani. In the runup to the elections, Jordaan spoke passionately about rebuilding South African soccer from ‘grassroots level’ to restore the image of SAFA. A former sports administrator, businessman, lecturer, politician, anti-apartheid activist and CEO of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee Board, Jordaan was born in Port Elizabeth. He became involved in anti-apartheid activities by joining the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) in the early 1970s. He completed his BA and Higher Diploma in Education at UWC, as well as an honours degree from the University of South Africa (Unisa). Jordaan interrupted his studies at UWC in the early ‘70s to become an unqualified
teacher. After 1976, he returned to UWC and graduated. Jordaan was very involved in sport at UWC – playing football and cricket, and represented Western Province in cricket. Jordaan also held the position of chairman of the UWC Football Club. In 1990 he was elected as the chairperson of the ANC branch in Port Elizabeth North. After the first democratic elections in 1994, he was a Member of Parliament for the ANC until 1997. Jordaan has received three honorary doctorates: a DPhil from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, a DAdmin from Unisa, and a second DPhil from his alma mater, UWC.
Jordaan was very involved in sport at UWC – playing football and cricket, and represented Western Province in cricket. Jordaan served FIFA in numerous capacities, including as General Coordinator for the Youth World Cup (now the FIFA U-20 World Cup), 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup and
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the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea/Japan. He was also match commissioner for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and a member of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee.
As well as receiving the Presidential Sport Achievement Award from President Thabo Mbeki in 2001, he was voted 44th in the Top 100 Great South Africans and Newsmaker of the Year in 2004. As well as receiving the Presidential Sport Achievement Award from President Thabo Mbeki in 2001, he was voted 44th in the Top 100 Great South Africans and Newsmaker of the Year in 2004. He also received a mayoral award from the Mayor of Los Angeles, California in 2004 and has been given the Freedom of the City of Maracaibo, Venezuela.
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been an outstanding performer this season, displaying leadership skills and admirable conduct that earned her the captaincy armband. Her performance didn’t go unnoticed. She was called up to the senior national women’s football team, Banyana Banyana, which took part in the Cyprus Women’s Cup, and was instrumental in the University Sports South Africa (USSA) women’s football team reaching the semi-finals of the World Student Games in Russia in July. Freddie Muller, who is currently training with the Western Province Currie Cup side, played a big role in helping UWC reach the final of this year’s FNB Varsity Shield Cup – in which he was the top try scorer, and was also awarded the Player that Rocks title. He was selected for the South African Student 15 side which played Namibia in May 2013, and represented Team SA as part of the Rugby Sevens side at the World Student Games in Russia.
UWC’s sports stars
honoured for their excellence Excellence was the buzzword at UWC’s Annual Sports Awards ceremony, held on 10 October 2013. Superb performances earned rugby sensation Freddie Muller and star footballer Vuyo Mkhabela top honours.
At the glamorous event, Muller was honoured as the Sportsman of the Year, and Mkhabela received the Sportswoman of the Year accolade. Her team, UWC Ladies Football Club, took home the award for Top Team of the Year. Vuyo Mkhabela, a second-year BA Sport Recreation and Management student, has
Several other outstanding athletes, personalities and clubs were also recognised at the awards ceremony, including the
netball club, which received the Top Club of the Year award; Paul Treu and Remondo Solomons, who received special recognition in rugby and chess respectively; and Hassan Sobekwa and Faloe Sunda, who took home the Merit Award for Administrative Services. Professor Lullu Tshiwula, Deputy ViceChancellor: Student Development and Support Services, said the Annual Sports Awards is an important event for athletes and students, as it speaks to the University’s goal of enabling the holistic development of students. Treu, the former Springbok Sevens coach, was also the guest speaker at the event, and encouraged athletes, coaches and administrators to raise their standards, be persistent and acquire the character necessary to reach greatness.
“Without character, players always fall short of excellence. As a coach, when the going gets tough you look at players with character to do it for you,” said Treu.
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BOOK REVIEWS New book provides global perspectives on the beautiful game
Football, in many ways, is a visual experience. From the live experience within the stadium to worldwide media representations, from advertisements to football art and artefacts; football is much about seeing and being seen, and visualising play. This was no less true during the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa, described as a perfect example of the visual dimensions of football in a new book, Global Perspectives on Football in Africa: Visualising the Game, co-authored by Professor Ciraj Rassool, director of the African Programme in Museum and Heritage Studies at UWC and Susann Baller and Giorgio Miescher of the University of Basel, Switzerland. For this event, stadiums were built and marketed as tourist attractions, mass media and internet platforms advertised South African cities and
venues, logos and emblems were displayed and celebrated, and exhibitions were organised in museums world-wide. This book explores the social, cultural and political role of football in Africa by focusing on the issue of its visibility and invisibility, as well as its visuality. The contributors consider the history and contemporary existence of football in different parts of Africa. The contributors examine historical and recent pictures of football and football players, as well as places and spaces of their production and perception. In addition, the contributors analyse visual dimensions expressed in sport infrastructure, football media-scapes, and in expressive and material arts. Consequently, this book contributes to the growing interest in football in Africa by exploring a new field of research in sport. Global Perspectives on Football in Africa is a product of a collaborative project on football between UWC and the University of Basel, as well as the District Six Museum and the Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB), a private specialist library and archive on southern Africa in Switzerland. UWC has ongoing partneships with the University of Basel and BAB with regard to student mobility and new research projects.
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Scholar tells the story of trout In his new book, Are Trout South African?, Professor Duncan Brown, Dean of Arts at UWC, explores in detail the ongoing complex relationship between human populations and the fauna and flora of their ecosystems. Taxonomically, trout comprises a number of species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera Oncorhynchus, Salmo and Salvelinus, all of the subfamily Salmoninae belonging, in turn, to the family Salmonidae. The word trout is also used as part of the name of some non-salmonid fish such as Cynoscion nebulosus, the spotted sea trout or speckled trout. Trout are closely related to salmon and char (or charr). In his book, Brown, renowned for his work in the field of South African literary and cultural studies, draws on the history of and literature on the fish, scientific work on what is considered ‘indigenous’ or ‘alien’, as well as his own stories of fishing to provide an engaging and accessible exploration of what is described as a contested physical and cultural terrain. “Questions of indigeneity and of the right to belong or be part of, raise themselves with greater or lesser degrees of complexity, aggression or insistency in public and private debates in South Africa and many other societies whose histories have been shaped by colonialism,” Brown says. This book explores questions about the complex community of humans, fauna and flora that make up South Africa. It poses the question whether a fish species that was introduced in the late nineteenth
century as part of the process of colonial occupation could be called South African. Brown says fishing has been part of who he is and is constitutive of his identity in fundamental ways. He was inspired to write the book by the increasing attention paid to issues of environment and ecology in a range of fields of writing, especially with regard to environmental transformations that colonial and imperial histories wrought upon such societies.
From Robben Island to Bishopscourt: The biography of Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane From Robben Island to Bishopscourt: The Biography of Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane was written by award-winning author Dr Sindiwe Magona who, among others, also received the iKhamanga Bronze medal from President Jacob Zuma. This is the story of Archbishop Ndungane, who succeeded Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, and his time on Robben Island where he helped build the cell that would later house Madiba. UWC’s Chancellor, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, Ndungane’s successor, wrote the foreword. Ndungane’s humility and mission of compassion and service is cause for joyous celebration. His humble beginnings, unwavering faith, even when sorely tested, his uncommon passion for all life, is a beacon to many, especially those who find themselves on the receiving end of racism, bigotry and discrimination.
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New book looks inside African anthropology Inside African Anthropology: Monica Wilson and her Interpreters (edited by Associate Professor Andrew Bank of UWC and Professor Leslie Bank of the University of Fort Hare) offers an incisive biography of the life and work of South Africa’s foremost social anthropologist, Monica Wilson. By exploring a massive personal archive of Wilson’s main fieldwork and intellectual projects in southern Africa between the 1920s and 1960s, the book offers insights into Wilson’s personal and intellectual life. Beginning with her origins in the remote Eastern Cape, the authors follow Wilson to Cambridge University and back into the field among the Mpondo of South Africa, where her studies resulted in the book, Reaction to Conquest (1936). Her fieldwork focus then shifted to Tanzania where she teamed up with her husband, Godfrey Wilson. Monica Wilson later returned to South Africa to teach at Fort Hare where she recorded her Tanzanian research. In the 1960s, Wilson embarked on a new urban ethnography with a young South African anthropologist, Archie Mafeje, one of many black scholars she trained. Inside African Anthropology also provides a meticulously researched exploration of the indispensible contributions of African research assistants and co-researchers to the production of this famous woman scholar’s cultural knowledge of mid-twentieth century Africa.
The Village under the Forest The Village under the Forest, a documentary written and narrated by UWC scholar and author Heidi Grunebaum, won the Audience Award at the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival for Best South African Film.
call for the necessity of a re-working of Jewish identity for Jews everywhere …a haunting reminder that the future of Palestinian and Jewish life is inextricably bound and that the ancient Jewish prophetic, though battered and seemingly on its heels, is alive and well.” In The Mail & Guardian, Hazel Friedman wrote, “A courageous and poignant narrative told from three personal points of view: that of Grunebaum – a Jewish South African revisiting her allegiance to the Holy Land from the
Unfolding as a personal meditation on the Jewish diaspora, The Village under the Forest explores the hidden remains of the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya, which lies under a purposefully cultivated forest plantation called South Africa Forest. Using the forest and the village ruins as metaphors, the documentary explores themes related to the erasure and persistence of memory and dares to imagine a future in which dignity, acknowledgment and co-habitation become shared possibilities in Israel/Palestine.
respective fields. The School of Culture and Creative Expressions of the Ambedkar University, Delhi hosted a similar launch in India in January. The musical collaboration is said to have started as a conversation between the South African poet Ari Sitas and Indian singer Sumangala Damodaran in 2010. It led to an ‘interactive, collective poetry text’, and a performance by the Insurrections ensemble in October 2012 at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town. The positive response to that performance inspired the CD, which features the likes of Sitas (a renowned sociologist), Damodaran (an economist), Claude Cozens (drummer), Sazi Dlamini (musicologist and guitarist), Neo Muyanga (singer), Malika Ndlovu (playwright and poet), and Tina Schouw (singer and guitarist).
The Village Under The Forest is directed by Emmywinner Mark Kaplan. “The controversy that has surrounded the film speaks to the power of documentaries,” says festival director Lesedi Oluko Moche. “The film’s two sold-out screenings at Encounters really got people talking. You’d expect a film like this from a Palestinian filmmaker, but it’s been made by two Jews, who bravely confront, interrogate and take responsibility for the actions of their forebears, something we haven’t seen in many films out of South Africa.” In Mondoweiss (a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective) Marc H. Ellis called it “a clarion
perspective of a romanticised diaspora; those of Palestinian villagers exiled for decades from the land to which they have remained rooted, or relegated to the status of internal refugees; and that of a refusenik – a battle-scarred Israeli who activates for acknowledgment of the Nakba in order for Jews and Palestinians to co-exist in peace. The Village under the Forest makes for compelling and, possibly, devastating viewing for Jews, particularly those from the diaspora who either did not know about, or have avoided acknowledgment of, the Nakba…”
Insurrections CD launch Music lovers were treated to the fine tunes of Insurrections during their CD launch at the District Six Homecoming Centre in Cape Town. The CD was produced by South African History Online (SAHO) and the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at UWC. It is a collection of 12 compositions put together by 15 musicians and poets from South Africa and India, all celebrated in their
Hosting the CD launch in Cape Town, the founder and CEO of SAHO, Omar Badsha, explained that the project and music aims to bring South Africa and India closer together, given that they are facing similar problems. “It is a collaboration between the two countries,” he said. “I feel that the change to make South Africa and India into better countries is happening, and this change is reflected in the music.”
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UWC’s Transatlantic Partnership
Rectors of the University of the Western Cape, the University of Missouri and Ghent University assembled at a conference in January addressing “The importance of International Partnerships” to establish cooperation to advance the futures of these universities.
SANBI Facilitates Low-cost HIV Drug Resistance Testing
The South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI) at UWC developed an easy-to-use computational tool called Seq2Res that can be used to effectively process large amounts of data needed to provide a more sensitive HIV drug-resistance test at a cost-effective price.
UWC’s Field Emission Gun Scanning Electron Microscope
The Electron Microscope Unit (EMU) at UWC received an Auriga High-Resolution Field Emission Gun Scanning Electron Microscope (FEG SEM) in February. The instrument is equipped with state-of-the-art detectors and is one of only two in South Africa. It allows biologists, chemists and nanoscientists to conduct research and observe objects at a minute scale.
UWC’s Involvement in the PharmaSea Project
Researchers from the Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics (IMBM) at UWC were involved in the PharmaSea Project which gave researchers from all over the world the opportunity to collaborate with some of the leading marine biologists to search for organisms that could fuel new medical and cosmetic drug discoveries.
UWC’s Hydrogen-Powered Golf Cart
Hydrogen South Africa’s (HySA) Systems Integration and Validation Competence Centre at UWC together with Melex Electrovehicles have developed the first hydrogen-powered golf cart in South Africa. The vehicle is being used to investigate the viability of hydrogen in transport applications in South Africa.
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International partnership for Hydrogen Research
Speak Out Campaign
UWC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Coventry University and Microcab Industries, both from the UK, for the joint development of hydrogen and fuel cell platforms and technology. This partnership presents UWC with the opportunity to extend its education further into the hydrogen and fuel cell engineering fields.
In February UWC launched its Speak Out Campaign in aid of showing support against gender-based violence and child abuse. Students, academics and staff were encouraged to pledge their support to act against gender-based violence.
SANBI Tackles Coelacanth Genome
The South African National Bioinformatics Institute at UWC formed part of an international team of researchers from 40 institutions who recently decoded the genome of the world-famous “living fossil”, the fish known as the African Coelacanth. The decoding revealed that the fish evolves slower than any other vertebrate animals.
Banyana Banyana Ladies at UWC
UWC Ladies Football Club is home to some of South Africa’s top women in the sport. Jermaine Seoposenwe, Kaylin Swart, Vuyo Mkhabela, Rachel Sebati and Leandra Smede are members of the UWC Ladies Football Club who also play on the national squad Banyana Banyana.
UWC Swimmers Shine at SA Senior National Aquatic Championships
UWC collected a pleasing haul of 20 medals at the 2013 South African Senior National Aquatic Championships in Port Elizabeth in April. These medals were awarded to six of the University’s top swimmers namely: Jessica Ashley-Cooper, Tezna Abrahams, Muminah Connelly, Dean Wesso, Charné Dicks and Janneke Malan.
UWC – DEA Memorandum of Understanding on Oceans Research
UWC and the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) partnered to help take care of South Africa’s oceans and its marine resources. DEA Deputy Director General, Dr Monde Mayekiso, visited UWC recently to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the launch of the partnership.
Galaxies Merge to Form Star Factory
Astrophysicists from France, United Kingdom, United States and South Africa, including members of UWC’s Astrophysics Group, discovered two new galaxies by using the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) which proved that the material in the centre of the galaxies was formed by gas and was actually coalescing into stars.
New SA – German Partnership for UWC
UWC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Brandenburg University of Technology to extend its global footprint. The agreement was signed at UWC as part of an official visit to South Africa by Ralf Christoffels, Minister for Economic and European Affairs for Brandenburg (one of Germany’s federal states).
UWC Partners with DTI for New Degree Launch
UWC launched a new Bachelor of Economics in Local Economic Development degree programme which will unlock many opportunities at municipality level. The degree is offered in collaboration with the National Department of Trade and Industry and the University of Johannesburg.
Bioprospecting Indigenous Knowledge
A group of scientists at UWC led by Associate Professor Jeremy Klaasen of the Department of Medical Biosciences developed a product derived from the invasive plant, kraalbos, that can reverse the resistance of crop pathogens when applied in combination with conventional pesticides.
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Launch of Chamber Music Institute
UWC celebrated the launch of the new Chamber Music Institute and the re-introduction of accredited music courses to its curriculum which take an innovative approach to music training. The courses allow accomplished musicians without formal training to receive Recognition of Prior Learning when they register with the institute. Students studying towards other degrees at the University will now have the opportunity to obtain tuition and grading in music across intermediate and advanced levels.
Celebrating 10-year Partnership between UWC and RUB
UWC and Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) in Germany celebrated a decade-long partnership between RUB’s Institute of Development Research and Development Policy and UWC’s School of Government and Institute for Social Development. Collaboration between these two universities was established after an agreement was signed in September 2001.
UWCSLCA Science Lab Project
UWC’s Science and Learning Centre for Africa (SLCA) partnered with the Garden Cities Archway Foundation to provide 16 science centres to schools in dire need of science teaching facilities. The latest science centres were opened at Westridge High School, Lentegeur High School, Zisukhanyo Senior Secondary and Princeton High School. Science centres have also been opened at rural schools (for example, at Ashton Secondary School).
UWC Dance Champions 2013
The 2013 University Sport South Africa (USSA) Dancesport Championship was hosted by UWC and saw 18 institutions from across the country battle it out on the dance floor. The UWC dancesport team successfully defended their USSA dancesport title and was crowned the 2013 USSA Dancesport Champion.
3rd Annual Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture
The 3rd Annual Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture was held at UWC. The Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture is aimed at driving peace efforts around the world through dialogue and debate. This year former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented the lecture, entitled Strong and Cohesive Societies: The Foundations for Sustainable Peace.