Dear CUT Community

Annually on 9 August we celebrate National Women’s Day, and commemorate the iconic South African women who marched to the Union Building in 1956 to fight in the struggle against Apartheid, and in particular Pass Laws imposed upon women.

This year, Women’s Month is celebrated under the theme: The Year of Charlotte Maxeke: Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights for an Equal Future. The concept of generation equality is a global campaign and links with CUT’s strategy to achieve and accelerate women participation in senior management positions by 2030, whilst striving towards becoming a leading African university of technology. The generation equality campaign demands equal pay for equal jobs; equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work; an end to sexual harassment and all forms of violence against women and girls; healthcare services that respond to women’s needs; and the equal participation of women in politics and decision making in all areas of life.

At CUT, we commemorate Women’s Month in honour of these courageous women from all walks of life, and we strongly believe in empowering and encouraging our women to step up and occupy leadership positions. In addition, achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world is possible for CUT through accelerating a concept of women in leadership. In this regard, CUT has launched the Next Generation Women in Leadership (nGenWiL) programme which aims to connect CUT female employees with influential and experienced female mentors from different parts of the country, specialising in different fields both in the educational and corporate sectors to help develop and prepare them for high leadership positions, and to promote gender equality.

The university’s Alumni Affairs, situated in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Principal, recently held a Women in the Workplace: From Victimisation to Victory webinar, where a team of experts addressed questions that some are generally too afraid to ask or answer in the working environment. Women, and those working with women, took part in the discussion, laying a foundation for further discussions and actions needed to ensure a safe, healthy and dynamic workspace for women.

As we are fighting the war of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must always remember that South Africa is still grappling with another pandemic of gender-based violence and femicide, which was the theme for the third CUT Transformation Summit held from 9 to 10 June 2021 at the Welkom campus. As CUT, we strongly condemn these acts, and stand against any act of violence against women and any form of discrimination. Let us join hands in uprooting all forms of discrimination and treat each other with dignity, fairness, and respect, whilst promoting a culture that embraces inclusive diversity and equality. Let us create a university that is free from gender inequality and be an institution that supports and promotes women empowerment.

Kind regards / Ditumediso tse mofuthu / Vriendelike groete

Prof. Henk de Jager
Vice-Chancellor and Principal

Download the VC Communique, 06 August 2021 (PDF)