Aristotle said that music has the power to form the character and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young. This quote is befitting of the Musical Arts in South Africa: Resources and Applications (MASARA) research niche area at the North-West University (NWU).

MASARA is part of the NWU’s School of Music and Conservatory, and their focus is music and music well-being. The research niche area also focuses on the conservation and use of indigenous music and was established in November 2008.

South Africa faces difficult challenges that require the next generation of university graduates to be skilled leaders with extensive abilities to collaborate with communities to solve problems and create change. 

Four North-West University (NWU) projects carried out in partnership with communities exemplify how collaboration with communities can be impactful.

The GoAllOut Organisation student chapter at the North-West University (NWU) has initiated a community service project called Pad the Way.

The goals of the Pad the Way project are to increase awareness of the importance of personal hygiene for women, combat period poverty, and to encourage government leaders to make it mandatory for all schools and communities to provide free sanitary products to girls.

According to Melokuhle Magagula, the chairperson of the GoAllOut Organisation student chapter, they collected 100 000 individual sanitary pads for the project.

As human beings, we are taught that we should respect all living things, but this can be a sensitive matter where snakes are concerned.

These reptiles are often portrayed as dangerous and evil creatures and this influences people’s attitude towards them, making them more feared because people do not have a lot of knowledge about snakes.

The environment encompasses all living and non-living things, and we see how negative impacts harm the environment. Human beings need to understand the environment and the impact of human behaviour that causes climate change, resulting in soil erosion, poor air quality and undrinkable water.

With the aim of creating greater consciousness about the environment, the North-West University (NWU) hosted Green Week, which is also known as Environment Week.

After a week-long residential programme in the United Kingdom, two innovators from the North-West University (NWU) recently returned with renewed vigour to promote commercialisation in the fields of the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS).

The North-West University’s (NWU’s) subject group Crop Science, in partnership with the Mpumalanga Department of Agriculture, recently took final-year students on an excursion to Malelane in the Mpumalanga province for intensive physical training on commercial crop production and various crop processing technologies.

The Mpumalanga Department of Agriculture hosted the excursion and selected a variety of farms for the students to visit.

The North-West University (NWU) partnered with the National Press Club (NPC) to celebrate journalists' extraordinary work and dedication at the 2022 Newsmaker & Journalist of the Year awards.

The prestigious award ceremony was held on Thursday, 20 April, in Menlyn, Pretoria and was attended by journalists and academics. The NWU's deputy vice-chancellor for planning and Vanderbijlpark Campus operations, Prof Linda du Plessis, gave the keynote address.

Dr Marinda Neethling and Dr Susan Greyling, both academics from the North-West University’s (NWU's) research focus area Community-based Educational Research (COMBER), recently travelled to Namibia and Zimbabwe to collaborate and build relationships in the field of early childhood development.

Dr Neethling's research focuses on providing comprehensive training to caregivers in African early childhood development centres, where many caregivers are unqualified grandmothers or mothers.

It has been a week since you were crowned Varsity Cup champions and I still struggle to find words for how proud I am of you. What a wonderful achievement. You took on the best university rugby teams and players in the country and you came out on top. But that is not all. The spirit with which you represented the North-West University (NWU) was nothing short of inspirational. The skills you displayed on the field were exceptional, but it was your determination, the respect you showed your opponents, your integrity and humility in victory that made you extraordinary.