Face masks for a great cause

North-West University (NWU) alumnus Ofentse Rabaji has truly proven how one man’s waste can be another man’s treasure.

The 27-year-old who holds a master’s degree in environmental management, has been making face masks for the less fortunate, by using scrap cotton fabric.

Ofentse also sells these masks to members of the…

The men who shaped the NWU’s Varsity Cup teams

A rugby fraternity is a band of like-minded brothers, a group of men and women who believe that no inch should be yielded in pursuit of winning the game. There are the custodians of the game, the administrators and the various specialists employed to ensure that this goal is reached.

However, none are more in the spotlight than the…

Further cut in interest rates is another valuable mitigating step

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) cut the repo rate by another 50 basis points on 21 May. Prof Raymond Parsons, well-known economist and academic from the NWU Business School, says this underscores the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) resolve to provide the necessary monetary support in light of the economic impact of the prolonged…

This is why you have been struggling to sleep

If you log on to any social media platform in the early hours of the morning you are likely to find a lot of people online. Since the country went into lockdown due to Covid-19 a few weeks ago, South Africans have been struggling to fall asleep.

Prof Pieter Kruger, a consultant clinical psychologist and director of the NWU’s Centre…

Remembering Prof Claassen

He strode the red, rich earth of the old Western Transvaal like a colossus, this enigma of a man. Hard and uncompromising, dedicated to the extreme. For decades his name was known in rugby circles the world over as a Goliath of the game.

And I got to wear his blazer once.

In the amateur days of the sport – when “bricklayer…

Covid-19, the virus of uncertainty: the dominoes are falling one by one in the economy

The Covid-19 virus is causing unprecedented uncertainty on a global scale. An economist from the North-West University (NWU) says the impact of the pandemic is expected to be greater than that of the Spanish flu of a century ago.

According to Prof Danie Meyer, a development economist and director of the TRADE research focus area at…

Driving Gerhard Horn

The Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas is a 5,513 km test of driving expertise. Most turns bank to the left, exerting excessive amounts of G-force on the driver. “Don’t brake too late,” the motoring journalist mutters to himself as he reaches the apex of what the vehicle allows going down the straight. His face contorts as his…

Practical project helps communities

With the prevention of the spreading of the Covid-19 virus on everyone’s lips, the North-West University’s (NWU’s) subject group Textile Sciences came up with an innovative idea for their practical work.

These students are all making masks from different materials at home to distribute them to workers in their vicinity who are…

How to resolve coronavirus food shortages

It is no secret that millions of South Africans currently suffer under the impact of the lockdown regulations introduced because of the coronavirus pandemic. The poor access to food is probably the biggest tragedy, because millions of citizens do not know where their next meal is coming from.

A Potchefstroom engineering company,…

Prof runs 1 100 laps to help alleviate hunger

On the morning of 24 April, Prof Dewald van Niekerk, laced up his running shoes and started running around his house in Potchefstroom. The time was 10:30. When he finally stopped to unlace his shoes, twenty-four hours and ten minutes later, he’d circled his house 1 100 times to clock a distance of 110km.

Dewald, together with…