Phehello Mahasele, a postgraduate student in the Pharmacy Department, recently won the Ford Foundation
International Fellowships Programme Alumni Association’s Alumni of the Year Award for outstanding performance and lasting contributions to social justice in South Africa.
Phehello Mahasele, a postgraduate student in the Pharmacy Department, recently won the Ford Foundation
International Fellowships Programme Alumni Association’s Alumni of the Year Award for outstanding performance and lasting contributions to social justice in South Africa.
The award was presented to Phehello at the association’s AGM held in Johannesburg in early February where Phehello was also elected as executive member of the committee representing the Eastern Cape.
The Ford Foundation presented Phehello with a certificate of recognition for demonstrating deep dedication to the International Fellowship’s Programme’s values of learning, leadership and commitment.
As a management committee member of the Raphael Centre for HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) and HIV support and outreach programmes, he won this award through his dedicated focus on HIV/Aids management.
Since the centre’s inception in 1999 thousands of people have been helped through counseling, testing and social support by providing children of the HIV affected and infected with school uniforms and school fees.
The centre is the first licensed non-medical testing site in Grahamstown providing mobile VCT services to rural communities.
The committee aims to expand prevention education services to reach more than a thousand individuals every month.
This includes developing partnerships and working relationships with Rhodes, the Anglican Diocese of Grahamstown, Settlers Hospital and municipal primary health care clinics and establishing skilling youth camps for orphans and vulnerable children.
The committee is made up of but not limited to a local medical doctor involved in treating Aids patients, an antiretroviral treatment social worker, a nurse lawyer, the director of Centre for HIV/Aids Research and Evaluation (Cadre) and a nun of the Catholic Church.
Phehello is currently completing his master’s degree in operational research in HIV/Aids in the Grahamstown
public health sector through the Rhodes Pharmacy Department.
He was also recognised as a Ford Foundation International Fellow for postgraduate work towards a master’s degree in HIV/Aids treatment barriers at Rhodes between February 2007 and January 2009.
