August 2019 EDITION


UMP Women’s Month celebrations

As the country celebrated Women’s Month, the University of Mpumalanga painted the town red with a series of splendid and engaging events to empower women from all walks of life. The celebrations kicked off with a three-day conference where the university hosted the South African Chapter of International Association of Women Judges (SAC-IAWJ) in celebration of their 15th year of existence. Welcoming the guests, UMP Vice Chancellor Professor Thoko Mayekiso said: “The conference is about sharing ideas about how to empower and protect ourselves and the generations yet to come, against the scourge of Gender-based violence and toxic masculinity.”



LETTER FROM THE VICE CHANCELLOR

August has been nothing but eventful – we hosted a series of empowering and engaging events in celebration of Women’s Month. Our big one was the three-day conference, where about 300 delegates from the South African Chapter of International Association of Women Judges (SAC-IAWJ) attended. Themed: Women Empowerment: A shawl and a shield in the fight against sexual and Gender-based violence, the conference demonstrated our ability to organize an event of such magnitude. Thank you to the UMP team and everyone else who made it a success.



GOOD TURNOUT AT THE CAREER EXPO

The 2019 Career Expo remains a significant event for UMP students and employers who participated in the exhibition. “The turnout was impressive. More companies took part this year. We had 29 companies participating in the expo. Most have been with us since inception and some joined this year to make it bigger and better,” said Raymond Mkhwanazi, Students and Graduates Senior Manager.



LESSONS FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Nature Conservation lecturer and researcher, Dr Inam Yekwayo from the School of Biology and Environmental Sciences, is back from a visiting fellowship at Harvard University – Centre for African Studies. Upon arrival Dr Yekwayo said: "I had the opportunity to observe how the Harvard facilitates teaching and learning. So, attending classes was useful, particularly because I saw their different teaching and assessment methods. Through those observations I have ideas on how to implement some in my own teaching at UMP."



ENACTUS UMP CONTINUE TO SHINE ON BIG STAGES

The ENACTUS UMP team took third place at the 2019 ENACTUS SA National Competition. The team presented an innovative community development project, Hatching Hope, which according to the President of ENACTUS UMP, Tebogo Monageng, was a success because, “Countless hours of research went into the project. We explored different possible business models of implementation. It took a lot of love, patience and hard work, taking into consideration that we all have schoolwork to focus on as well.”



STUDENT LEADERS VISIT SHENZHEN UNIVERSITY

As part of creating opportunities to develop students, UMP took the Dean of Students, Dr Paul Maminza and three SRC members: President Castro Mashabane, Secretary General Irondina Maile and Treasurer Simon Mashile to Shenzhen University. The group were on a mission to establish how the Asian institution runs its student affairs activities. SRC Treasurer Mashile said: “China is an amazing place. The people are friendly and welcoming. There is a lot that one can learn from the Chinese life, their way of doing things, systems and unity amongst them. Their mind set is positive and it helps them to achieve a lot in their lives.”