Wintry weather dampened few spirits on 18 July as SHAWCO commemorated Mandela Day by helping school children from around the Cape Flats vivify their communities, in keeping with the late Madiba's example of paying it forward.

UCT staff from the Child Nurse Practice Development Initiative and a multidisciplinary team of dieticians and nurses from the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital will host several events to mark World Breastfeeding Week, from 1-7 August.

The LSE-UCT July School, which ran in Cape Town from 30 June to 11 July, provided students and staff with an opportunity not only to learn from each other over an intense two-week period, but also to plant the seeds for future collaborations, say the programme's co-ordinators.

UCT notes with sadness the passing of South African literary giant Nadine Gordimer (90) at her home in Johannesburg on 13 July. Gordimer is counted among the university's extended community, having been awarded a Doctor of Literature in 1986, just five years before winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.

UCT's 2014 phonathon was an unprecedented success, with student callers raising more than three times their target in this month-long fundraising initiative. Some 41 students connected with over 12 000 alumni in a bid to raise money for university projects like Student Financial Aid and the Schools Improvement Initiative.

Twenty-three MPhil in Development Policy and Practice students, the first cohort in the new Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice (GSDPP), were welcomed back to UCT from East and Southern Africa for the start of their second semester.