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Mutshidzi Mulondo among Mail & Guardian’s influential young South Africans

06 July 2021 | Story André Damons | Photo Supplied

Mutshidzi-Abigail-Mulondo_web read more — Mutshidzi Abigail Mulondo, Lecturer and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), has been recognised as one of the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans.

For Mutshidzi Abigail Mulondo, Lecturer and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), being recognised as one of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans is encapsulated in Mark Twain’s quote, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why”.

Knowing that she is living her ‘why I was born’ and actually being recognised for it, is a wonderful feeling, says Mulondo, whose passion is public health.

“I feel honoured to have been considered and counted among influential young South Africans who are doing incredible work. I am thankful to Mail & Guardian for this wonderful recognition,” says Mulondo.

Passion and commitment to promoting health

She was nominated by one of her mentors but was sceptical that she would be in the final 200 list, as there are usually more than 5 000 applications each year. According to Mulondo, she is happy to have been proven wrong and even more grateful to be surrounded by powerful women who continue to propel her towards her purpose.

Mulondo says she always knew that she wanted to be in a position to help alleviate pain and suffering and that health would be her avenue to serve humanity. Says Mulondo: “When I started with an interdisciplinary PhD in Health Professions Education and Community Health, it further solidified my passion and commitment to promoting health.”

“I am equally passionate about mental health wellness. After completing a master’s degree in Psychology at the University of Pretoria, I knew it would provide me with an opportunity to impact people’s lives more holistically. An opportunity to not only promote physical health, but to also advocate for mental health.”

Hope for the youth of South Africa

Mulondo’s message to young people is also the motto she lives by: “Be kinder to yourself”. So many times, we are hard on ourselves when we fail or when we do not accomplish what we set out to accomplish at a particular time.

“Please remember that you are the only you that will ever be. You must therefore be gentler with yourself; despite what you thought you would have achieved thus far, appreciate how far you have actually come against whatever odds,” says Mulondo.

Her hope for the youth of South Africa is that we reach a point where fighting against issues such as gender-based violence (GBV), systematic racism, gender inequality, high unemployment rates, and all other constructs that affect our youth and country is a matter of the past. “While we envision that day, I hope that we all continue to stand together and speak up for the vulnerable, marginalised, and disenfranchised. I am confident that we will see and experience the fullest potential of our youth, in this lifetime (Jeremiah 29:11).”

News Archive

Eugene de Kock, FW de Klerk and forgiveness – Prof Gobodo-Madikizela’s take on gestures of reconciliation

2015-02-06

What Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies at the University of the Free State, found over the years talking to Eugene de Kock, was a man tortured by his past. By the deeds he has committed.

“As a result he was confronting these – not as a cog in a machine – but as a person who actually did the deed himself,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela said during an interview [https://soundcloud.com/primediabroadcasting/dr-gobodo-on-de-kock-parole] with Pippa Hudson on Cape Talk. A man taking personal responsibility.

Against the backdrop of De Kock recently granted parole, what, then, is the nature of forgiveness?

“Often people think when they forgive, you forgive and forget. That’s not the point,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela says. “Forgiving, in fact, I found is the wrong word. We are using forgiveness for a range of responses. What I find useful in this kind of work is to think about how people change, how people are transformed. In other words, to think about our empathic connection to people who are our former enemies.” In other words: to reach a place where both parties can see each other as fellow human beings. “Somehow when a person expresses remorse – in the way Eugene de Kock has done – it opens a door for the different kinds of relationships to that traumatic past,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela says.

In an article for the Sunday Times, Prof Gobodo-Madikizela refers to the motion to immortalise F W de Klerk by renaming Table Bay Boulevard after him. In this piece, she clearly points out that De Klerk is not without blood on his hands. She agrees with Mayor Patricia de Lille’s support of this tribute to De Klerk, though, when De Lille refers to ‘the spirit of reconciliation that Tata Madiba believed in’.

Justice Minister Michael Masutha – who granted De Kock parole – and De Lille “are right in evoking the memory of Nelson Mandela through these important gestures of reconciliation,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela remarks. The need to return to Nelson Mandela’s vision, she adds, remains urgent.

Read Prof Gobodo-Madikizela’s full article, published in the Sunday Times, here.
For Prof Gobodo-Madikizela’s response to Eugene de Kock, FW de Klerk and reconciliation, read here.

For more information or enquiries contact news@ufs.ac.za

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