3 May 2021 Issue 4 Year 83

Tshegofatso Maine: 19-yearold student and community service

Amukelani Makamu

UP Political Science second year student, Tshegofatso Maine, has started a non-profit organisation (NPO) called ‘Legae La Kganya’. The NPO aims to push initiatives that empower marginalised groups, especially in the student community.

Maine explains that the main aim of the NPO is to donate to students who cannot afford basic needs like toiletries and food. She further explains that Legae La Kganya has started its first initiative, namely ‘The Pad Drive’. The initiative aims to collect at least 500 sanitary pads in 16 days. The sanitary pads will be donated to student accommodations in Hatfield, a High School in Mamelodi, and a shelter for the homeless. The second project Legae La Kganya plans on running after the 16 days is a food drive. Maine further told PDBY that she might be the Chairperson of the NPO, but she is not working alone to positively impact student lives. She works closely with another UP student, Rethabile Kgomo, and UP alumni, Boikanyo Ernest.

Maine says that they plan to reach out and work with the SRC, specifically with the transformation and media portfolios, with the goal of enabling the initiatives carried out by the NPO to reach a larger number of students and have a greater positive impact.

Maine cites the inspiration behind these initiatives as the way she grew up in a township, facing and witnessing the struggles people had, such as not having sanitary pads. She says that this ultimately led to her wanting to “help out more”.

Legae La Kganya express their willingness to work with other structures, saying that if any structure would like to work with them, they can email the NPO at legaelakganya@gmail.com or reach out to Maine on 0721571431.

Meet Hatfield: In the shoes of a beauty industry worker

Mothusi Mokalane

The COVID-19 pandemic and the hard restrictions of the Level 5 lockdown period in 2020 set South Africa’s local hair and beauty industry back significantly. The beauty industry has struggled after being shut down for months as it made it to the list of non essential businesses that had to shut down operations when cases of COVID-19 increased. According to a multinational company and research group, Mekinsey, the global industry generates $500 billion in annual sales and accounts for millions of jobs, directly and indirectly. Many of the people who work in these industries were left without work for months.

Locally; Hatfield is a university town that has hundreds of students from the University of Pretoria and other institutions walking its streets. Every one of these students is part of the target market for all of the salons around the city. When campuses closed for lockdown in March 2020, the large majority of students left residences and accommodations in Hatfield, which resulted in severe economic setbacks for the salons and all of their employees who faced the impact of lockdown restrictions. Matilda Okai, a Ghanaian citizen living in South Africa working as a hairdresser, is a manager at Hatfield Beauty and Hair Studio. Okai said that the lockdown crippled the business as they had to go for months without any income between her and her husband. “No work means no pay when you are a salon worker, even if you miss a single day. Now imagine months of a business not operating”, she explained.

Okai said that what was even more difficult during the hard restrictions period was having to pay rent for the store they operate from. That put a strain on the staff and managers because it made it more difficult to honour salaries. Okai explained that her business did not qualify for specific government relief, and that it felt the burden of lockdown on a pronounced level. Okai elaborated that even now post hard lockdown restrictions, the business is still going through strain because they are recovering from the losses of 2020. “Last year when the salons were closed, my husband had to ask for money from our family in Ghana just so we could survive. It was really hard going for months without any money entering our pockets”, said Okai.

Okai indicated that because of where they operate, which is Hatfield, they have a market advantage of students, and predominantly UP students. “Even when the university closes for recess we suffer as a business because the absence of students kills our business, as they make up most of our clientele”. Martin, a Barber at Hatfield Barber, agreed, indicating that the lockdown placed his business in a vulnerable state due to the lack of income for months. “It is only now that one is starting to recover from the debacle of 2020, at least now I can make ends meet”, he explained. Martin also stated that when UP students are all in town they can see and feel the difference, as they have regular clients. “When students [are] here, I know I will make a lot of money in a day, so it was very difficult last year when the majority of them were not around”, he said.

While most industries have reopened and can conduct business freely, many still experience the economic and personal challenges caused by the lockdown in 2020. Small businesses like Hatfield Barber and Hatfield Beauty and Hair Studio continue to recover the financial losses of the past year and continue business as their largest clientele basis is still largely missing from Hatfield.

News Bites

Compiled by Nokwanda Kubheka

More than 30” emails about GBV to the SRC

In 2020, the UP SRC announced the launch of a GBV email address that aimed to assist students who would fall victim to gender based violence by making the email address the first point of contact for victims to use to get guidance and assistance to report and resolve their cases.

When asked about the initiative the SRC said, “the GBV initiative has truly been a great success”, but did not provide feedback on the number of emails received or the number of students assisted by the initiative. SRC member for Media, Marketing and Communications, Chanel Brown, said that it “is difficult to even quantify the number of students”, but that “more than 30 but less than 60 emails have been received”. Brown did not reveal who monitors or responds to emails, and said only that “an SRC member” manages the account.

Huawei invests in UP EBIT students

Huawei Technologies South Africa recently awarded bursaries to the value of R1,1 million to eight students from the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) at UP.

The bursaries were awarded to full time undergraduate and masters students to help them further their studies in the fields of EBIT.

UP lecturer selected to be part of BRICS collaboration

Prof. Hanlie Smuts from the Department of Informatics has been chosen to facilitate collaboration among researchers and institutions across the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) member countries as part of a project to find creative solutions to the current global health crisis.

Prof. Smuts is the principal investigator on the research initiative that brings together the experience of scholars from Brazil, Russia, and South Africa. The initiative will be known as BRICSmart and will be titled ‘BRICS-ICT alliance for smart resource utilisation to combat global pandemic outbreaks’. It covers artificial intelligence as well as information and communication technology (ICT) and how these topics may be applied to address issues around pandemics.

UP experts consider cannabis use and labour law

UP medico-legal experts, Dr JB Laurens and Professor Pieter Carstens, raised legal dilemmas regarding cannabis use by workers in a research article entitled “Cannabis legislation and testing for cannabis use in safety- and risk-sensitive environments”.

A question that was raised was how employers can accurately and ethically detect if employees are under the influence of THC (the active component of cannabis) while at work. The legal dilemma arose in that THC can be detected in blood tests, saliva tests and urine tests for days after consumption, and is not an accurate indication of current intoxication.

Dr Laurens and Prof. Carstens explain that using a ‘zero’ point threshold for testing is not “scientifically correct and could be problematic to defend in a court or labour hearing, since the ‘zero’ depends on the detection method”. They express that it is “essential to set a threshold concentration that was low enough for an individual to operate in a risk-sensitive environment, while also respecting their autonomy to use cannabis in private”.