Welcoming tea for new CHED staff

Last week CHED had much to celebrate. At a CHED Tea, staff welcomed into the family the newly insourced staff and welcomed back Dean Suellen Shay from her sabbatical. At the event A/Prof Mbulungeni Madiba was also thanked for doing a stellar job as acting Dean for the past three months.
 
CETAP’s Naziema Jappie officially welcomed back A/Prof Shay who admitted that although she was grateful for the break she had missed her colleagues saying, “I feel fortunate to work with people that I really like so I missed them”. She then went on to thank A/Prof Madiba for agreeing to stand in for her during what should have been a “quiet time” to which Professor Madiba aptly expressed “Yoh!” in his usual upbeat way, eliciting laughter from the crowd.
 
A/Prof Laura Czerniewicz officially thanked A/Prof Madiba on behalf of CHED, something she conveyed came quite easily given the “fantastic job” he had done. She described him as “principled, pragmatic, empathic, sensible and kind” and reminded him that the problem with proving oneself to be really good at something means people will call on you again.
 
A/Prof Madiba thanked A/Prof Czerniewicz for the praise and said that he could not have done it alone. He described CHED as well-run which was testimony to the “calibre of people in the faculty”. He explained that everyone asked him if he was coping and how he was feeling and that he’d answer that “this is an opportunity”. It is about “trust; trust that you’ll come back and find your faculty still there!”
 
He then thanked the Dean’s Office and specifically the newly insourced workers for taking care of him calling them “Super-CHED” without whom CHED could not function.
 
Finally, Ms Jappie officially welcomed all the newly insourced workers working in CHED locations across campus, saying: “we will make sure that it [outsourcing] does not happen again.” Supervisor Ashvin Buffel addressed the crowd on behalf of the other workers with a poignant line: “We are not cleaners anymore, we are general workers” after which he expressed his trust in his team and thanked CHED for their support. Mr Buffel then closed the formalities with: “We’re going to go with you all the way”; and as CHED we have no doubt that together we will thrive.

Story by: Aamirah Sonday
Photo Credit: Rondine Carstens