Masters student Camalita Naicker has become the first studentto be awarded an R80 000 Ruth First Scholarship by Rhodes University, after being chosen from 13 shortlisted candidates.
Masters student Camalita Naicker has become the first studentto be awarded an R80 000 Ruth First Scholarship by Rhodes University, after being chosen from 13 shortlisted candidates.
The scholarship, launched in 2010, is intended to support candidates whose work reflects the spirit of Ruth First, who Dr. Saleem Badat, Rhodes's Vice Chancellor, describes as “an outstanding intellectual, scholar and investigative journalist and a revolutionary committed to social justice and human emancipation.”
Naicker has a Bachelor of Journalism from Rhodes University and completed a joint honours degree in Political and International Studies, and African Studies.
A young woman of strong convictions, she has demonstrated her commitment to issues of social justice and humanism through her previous involvement in organisations such as the South African Students Congress (SASCO).
She is currently involved in the newly formed Students for Social Justice, which aims to engage with the greater Grahamstown community to create a space for open debate and support the re-appropriation of democracy by ordinary people.
Naicker will study towards an MA by thesis and will conduct her research in the field of emancipatory politics under the supervision of Mr Richard Pithouse at the Department of Political and International Studies.
Through her research, she says she hopes to contribute to a participatory democracy in which everybody can have their say so that “we might move closer to fulfilling our largely incomplete decolonisation project.”
Ruth First remains an inspiration to Naicker who feels that women’s contributions to society are often overlooked in a patriarchal system of social, economic and political relations.
