A South African University Experiments with Giving Back to the Community

"Quad rugby!" I exclaim. "What's that?"

"Rugby played in wheelchairs by quadriplegics," explains Henry Austin, sport and recreation manager in the township of Mangaung. "It's played with a netball; four a side; to score you have to pass between the goal posts of your opponents, carrying the ball with you. But first you have to escape the markers; their task is to prevent you from getting the ball."

"The wheelchairs are purpose-built, but often they knock each other over. The severer the disability, the rougher the sport," says Marlize, a rugby coach.

And also a cricket coach. Marlize is especially proud of the blind cricketers of Mangaung who this year ended up winners in the development league at the National Cricket Tournament.

To these national sports we can add wheelchair basketball, disabled cycling, and disabled table tennis, all of which form part of a "total well-being" project in one of South Africa's most deprived settings. Even more comprehensively, we are looking at a multisectoral partnership in healthcare, education, economic and agricultural development between the University of the Free State and the community of Mangaung, or "lair of the leopard," which it surely once was, before half a million people settled here in sprawling poverty.

Universities, wherever they may be, have two distinct tasks, teaching and research. But universities also have at their disposal resources that can be utilized in development and expertise to deal with social problems. At Free State University many of the students live in communities where unemployment rates are fantastical and where poverty and crime are daily realities. The University has an inescapable responsibility, it is argued, to put something back into those communities.

A reasonable enough argument, of course. But how can this be justified in terms of the functions of a university, as prescribed by tradition and law. In answer to this question I am introduced to the concepts of "service learning" and "community-based research".

And so, at the Pholoho School for children with intellectual disabilities, I find myself in a narrow enclosure, hot as hell, and breathing spray-moistened air. Around me is a profusion of vegetarian delights - peppers, parsnips, spinach and beans, and potatoes three times life size (life size for a potato, that is). Inside this hydroponic tunnel all the greens that could be consumed by a school of 400 hungry pupils are produced under scientifically controlled conditions.

But before going into the science of it, I pose for a photograph with a couple of very proud twelve-year-olds, Thomas and Tukhelo, proud because the potting and planting, picking and bunching, is their handiwork. And then they watch with fascination as this inquisitive blind visitor traces the micropiping from the galvanized tank containing thousands of litres of chemicals to the capillary-like outlets where water and fertilizer, mixed with pharmaceutical precision, trickle into the soil.

And measurement is important, because Lean van der Westhuizen, custodian of the project, so to speak, is carefully researching inputs and outputs, and the maximization of hydroponic food production. On this particular day he discovers a small infestation of potato moth and displays all the ambivalence of an entomologist confronted by an investigatable pest and a gardener protective of his gently tended crop.

The disability projects of hydroponics and sport are but two examples of dozens of projects in Free State province to improve public health, upgrade agriculture, advance education, and stimulate economic activity. None of this would have been possible, though, without a fundamental change in attitude amongst academic staff as to the purpose and relevance of their tuition and research.

According to Kiepie Jafta, the man who heads up the community service division of the University, "integration" and "partnership" have to be the watchwords. The academic and research agenda of the university cannot be determined by the University alone, but has to be decided in consultation with surrounding communities, the various service sectors, and even other tertiary institutions. Included in the broader spectrum of these partnerships are the organizations of disabled persons. Without their input the programme of the University could not be considered holistic.

The programme does have its parallels in a hand full of universities elsewhere, particularly in the United States, where "campus compacts" are entered into to promote "good citizenship". But Kiepie Jafta is quick to make the point that Free State University is rooted in Africa, and that the aim is "to make a difference in our new nation".

Already in the turbulent years of the 1970's, the Reverend Jafta was one of the first to call on the University to open up its doors to all races. Later he was the co-founder of a transformation committee that began to implement the changes that in the coming years would carry the University a long way beyond the conservative and inward-looking institution it once was.

As dominee (reverend) in the Reformed Church of South Africa, Kiepie Jafta was a preacher in the impoverished community of Heidedal. Forced to earn more money to support a growing family, he joined the staff of the University, but agreed to stay on in the church as voluntary pastor. Some years on from there, his work has not only helped him to transform the University, but also the mission of his own life: putting words into deeds!

My journalistic assignment accomplished, I leave the University in the company of Mabel Erasmus, research assistant in the community service administration. Mabel -she of the smiling voice - has been my mentor and guide this day in Bloemfontein. With us in the car is Anna-Ryna, the departmental secretary, off to take her elderly mother shopping. And these gentle and kind people, it seems to me, epitomize what happens at an institution that sets itself on the right path: it attracts people of commitment who care. A good thing for the University, no doubt, but for city and country too.

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