A Masters student in Mechanical Engineering scooped the Best Research Paper and Best Presentation accolades at this year’s International Conference on New Energy and Future Energy Systems (NEFES 2019).

For her concerted efforts, Nambua Nteka was awarded a free entry to next year’s NEFES conference in Xi’an, China, as a guest speaker. Elizabeth, as she is affectionately known by her peers, says the title of her presentation and journal article is Design and Performance of 1.5 Axis Sun Tracking Concentrated Photovoltaic System.

The NEFES Conference, which took place recently at Macau University of Science and Technology in China, promotes scientific interchange among researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners from all over the world.

“It’s a great feeling, when looking at where I come from,” says the international student of Angolan origin. She adds that after going against her father’s desire for her to start working immediately after completing her national diploma, he stopped supporting her financially.

“At the beginning of 2017, I used my last money to buy a flight ticket back to Cape Town to enrol towards my BTech degree,” she says. She adds that throughout that year she survived with only R100 per month or less.

Fortunately for her, around June 2018 she was awarded a National Research Foundation bursary which covered most of her debt at the university. Her benefits as a tutor and Residence Student Assistant also go towards her tuition and accommodation fees.

Elizabeth had to apply in order to participate at the conference. “I sent a short abstract of my research and was invited to go present,” she continues. “The novelty of my work and its extent were the main reasons they accepted my research work as part of their conference.”

She adds that nothing can prevent one from achieving what one is determined to achieve. She thanks Anglo Residence house parent, Bulelwa Dlephu, and her supervisor, Dr Kant Kanyarusoke.  

Written by Kwanele Butana
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Imitha Yelanga Children’s Home has become the latest beneficiary of one of the Anglo Residence’s social responsibility activities, after the home was given food and clothes as part of a donation.

Anglo Residence, one of CPUT’s residences at the Bellville campus, in conjunction with the City of Cape Town, visited the home in Eerste Rivier on 28 August 2009.

About 25 people, who included the residence’s house committee and students and others from different residences of CPUT at the Bellville campus, took part in the initiative.

The outreach is part of the residence’s activities for the year, which among many includes social responsibility.

The group donated groceries amounting to more than R3000, which included meat, drinks and toiletries. Other donations were clothes that were collected by students who reside at Anglo Residence.

The main purpose of the visit was to interact with and give love to the children. The group also prepared lunch for the children, which was served after school by the students.

According to Bulelwa Dlephu, the residence coordinator, they decided to identify needy homes as part of their outreach programme.

Dlephu said: “We decided to rope in the City of Cape Town as they are in a good position to identify these homes. We were specific to them as we said we wanted the neediest home around Cape Town and Imitha Yelanga Children’s Home was the one.”

The residence started planning for the project at the beginning of the year and it was agreed that each student would donate R10.

“We later discovered that R10 was not going to be enough as Anglo Residence is one of the smallest residences here, and then we decided to ask people outside.

“We went almost to every department and we were also asking our friends that are outside the institution. Through patience from our side and much cooperation from the students, our project was very successful,” said Dlephu.

The City of Cape Town did not only identify the neediest home, but also offered to transport the group to and from the Bellville campus to Eerste Rivier.

Imitha Yelanga Children’s Home was started in 2000 by Ms Cordelia Woniwe who couldn’t stand seeing children being dumped by their parents on a daily basis.

She now looks after 11 children that she gets through the Department of Social Services.

Responding to CPUT students for their donation, Ms Woniwe said: “I thank you for coming here; you have really made a difference. You have brought hope and joy to these children.”

She continued by saying that: “Working with children from different backgrounds is not an easy task. Some of these children were dumped on the highways and I feel it is my responsibility to give them the love that they didn’t get from their biological parents”.

Woniwe used to work as a domestic worker before deciding that her destiny was taking care of the children.

The Anglo Residence has many activities in the pipeline and plans to visit more homes in the future.

“If things were easier for us, we would adopt the Imitha Yelanga Children’s home, but for now we can’t promise anything. We’ll keep on doing the best where we can,” Dlephu concluded.

By Andiswa Dantile

Written by CPUT News
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