Pretoria - Hangout spot Europa Lounge has seemingly backtracked on its Student Night Wednesday promotion that encouraged students to spend their National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) money on alcohol.
The Sunnyside venue has since deleted its social media advert promoting NSFAS Ingenile Student Night Wednesday following the public outcry. Ingenile means “it is in”, in reference to the NSFAS payout.
The poster continued to be circulated on social media yesterday, with users describing it as insensitive to young people who could not enrol in tertiary institutions because they did not have money, and those still paying off NSFAS loans, as well as future applicants.
On Tuesday night, Europa posted another update – which has since been deleted – saying management had dropped the age requirement to gain entry from 21 years to 18 because “the youth got more moola these days”.
Unisa SRC secretary general Shatadi Phoshoko said: “It reduces them to mere drunkards. It is insulting to the struggles of students in higher education and society at large.
“The club must in fact be boycotted for this. The society is struggling with alcohol abuse of young people. There is gender-based violence in higher education institutions that is caused by alcohol abuse at times.
“There is poverty whereby some students go to bed hungry, but here is a club attempting to accelerate all these problems and encourage young people to be irresponsible and spend money on alcohol.”
Tshwane University of Technology SRC president Keamogetswe Masike said: “This is highly irresponsible. Europa must close. If their target market is our students, we are going to close them down because it shows that they are not interested in the welfare of our students, but they have interest in their money – the same money that must assist students to pay for essentials like food and other things they need to survive."
Alex Mabotja, who lives in Pretoria, said he found the post distasteful. “They should ensure they monitor political correctness on their social media to avoid such things,” he said.
President of the Concerned Tshwane Liquor Traders Association Oupa Mthombeni said the promotion was totally wrong and irresponsible.
"Advertising is good, but compliance with norms and ethics is key. Law enforcement should confront these establishments when they do something like this. They need to apologise. We have a serious problem of alcohol abuse among our youth; we cannot add this on top of that.”
A rival club’s manager, who preferred to remain anonymous, said an official from Europa told him their marketing team was trying to promote the Student Night Wednesday and “meant no harm”.
NSFAS spokesperson Kagisho Mamabolo: “NSFAS condemns this act in its strongest form. This reckless behaviour not only perpetuates undue use of the allowance by its beneficiaries, but also counters the efforts by the scheme to instil financial responsibility to its beneficiaries.
“The allowances disbursed to NSFAS beneficiaries is intended to help students from poor backgrounds with food, transport, where necessary, learning material and other living expenses.”
In a statement posted on social media late yesterday afternoon, management of Europa Lounge said: “There is a flyer in circulation promoting an event at Europa regarding a student financial aid scheme; no event of such nature is happening on our premises.
“We do not condone or encourage any events of this nature.
“We sincerely apologise to our customers and various stakeholders affected by the unauthorised marketing that occurred.”
Pretoria News