The fruits of an eight-year-long, arduous community endeavour are now evident in the Potchefstroom Hospital project. This undertaking has been consistently fuelled by the unwavering passion, dedication and commitment of the staff who have been involved since 2014. The roots of the project can be traced back to the BEdHons in educational psychology curriculum of the North-West University (NWU), which has a strong emphasis on practical community engagement in its modules.

A researcher of the North-West University (NWU) has been selected to serve on the board of directors of the South African Heart Association (SA Heart®). He will also work in its executive and stakeholder committees.

Prof Ruan Kruger from the Hypertension in Africa Research Team (HART) will serve on the board for a period of three years. “It is a great honour. The SA Heart® board comprises the best cardiologists in South Africa, and for me as a physiologist to be selected is a wonderful milestone.”

“Music students are easily recognised, not by the musical instruments they carry, but by their dedication, respect, and unwavering commitment. They are the embodiment of hard work, continuously striving to better themselves, and their art.”

These are the words of Dr Yvonne-Marié Brand, director of the School of Music during her welcome message at the North-West University’s (NWU’s) School of Music annual Bursary Winners’ concert on 24 October 2023.

The top floor of the G23 Building on the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University (NWU) hosts the subject group Pharmacology in the School of Pharmacy, and a research team of the Pharmacen centre of excellence.

It is no surprise that, as a world-renowned expert in intelligence and foresight, Prof Jonathan Calof from the Ottawa University in Canada and extraordinary professor in the research focus area TRADE at the North-West University (NWU), is finding another global stage: China.

He found them in the mountains and streams of Limpopo. Frogs and lizards, big and small, all of them equally exciting to his inquisitive mind. To the despair of grandmother he would run around with them in his pockets – yes, even snakes – as his rural childhood village became a playground of untold riches. When the time came, as it always did, to return to Mamelodi, where he went to school, he immersed himself in that melting pot of cultures. 

The further slight decline in South Africa’s unemployment rate to 31,9% in the third quarter of 2023 is good news, and the fact that total employment is now back to its pre-pandemic levels is welcome.

The Sports Science team of the Centre for Health and Human Performance (CHHP) at the North-West University (NWU) recently travelled to the Tlamelang Special School just outside Mahikeng to conduct a series of talent identification tests on wheelchair basketball players for the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC). SASCOC is the National Olympic Committee and National Paralympic Committee for South Africa.

“When good governance is sacrificed on the altar of corruption, service delivery falters. Where corruption thrives, as we have seen in many of our municipalities, an increase in poverty becomes inevitable.”

This is according to Prof Kedibone Phago, director of the North-West University’s (NWU’s) School for Government Studies, who explains that corruption is killing the country’s future.

Maricélle Botes’s long journey with the North-West University (NWU) has paid off. This final-year PhD student at the research unit for Law, Justice and Sustainability has been honoured with the Research Excellence Award for Next Generation Researchers in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Law category by the National Research Foundation (NRF).

This is in recognition of her outstanding academic performance and demonstrated potential for contributing significantly to innovation.