Staff and students of the University of Pretoria celebrated the day by becoming involved in various community engagement projects.

Staff of the Department of Student Accommodation (TuksRes) and JuniorTukkie club members spent their day in Mamelodi painting and refurbishing the classrooms and toilets at the Japhta Mahlangu Secondary School.

The University of Pretoria’s Daspoort Policlinic also celebrated the Nelson Mandela International Day by erecting a tunnel for a vegetable garden to inspire the impoverished community to start their own gardens as a means of sustaining themselves and earning a livelihood. The clinic is run by an integrated multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, community health workers, dieticians, occupational therapists, dentists and physiotherapists who work together to find ways of improving not only the health, but also the lives of individuals, families and the community at large.

The project was initiated by two fourth-year Social Work students who are currently doing their practical training at the Daspoort Policlinic. Mimi Zwane and Dineo Maseko noticed that poverty was a serious problem in the community and felt that a project was needed that would assist them in producing food for themselves. Community members will be encouraged to start their own vegetable gardens and will be taught the basic skills required to maintain a garden.
 
 

Staff members of the Department of Student Accommodation spent the day refurbishing classrooms at the Japhta Mahlangu Secondary School

 
JuniorTukkie Club members Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Masego Moepi and Damian Sinovich refurbishing the toilets at the Japhta Mahlangu Secondary School in Mamelodi



Front row (left to right): Dr Anita Rautenbach (Administrator at Daspoort Policlinic), Mimi Zwane (fourth-year Social Work student), Dr Gerna Wessels (Practice co-ordinator at the Department of Social Work and Criminology), Dineo Maseko (fourth-year Social Work student) and Mr Rudy Jole (Chief Executive of Acorn Foundation, the company that donated the vegetable garden tunnel)


 Thobo Kgathola (on the ladder), Kabelo Mahlase and Pumeza Ndobeni hard at work