MMATSHEPHO PHASHA RECEIVES THE MANDELA RHODES SCHOLARSHIP IN 2011
Prepared by Mmatshepho Phasha
The great leadership of Nelson Mandela and the legacy of Cecil John Rhodes led to the formation of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation (MRF) in 2003. The
Foundation represents the symbolic unification of Mandela and Rhodes’s legacies of reconciliation, leadership, entrepreneurship, and education. The scholarships offered by this Foundation
are building exceptional leadership capacity in Africa. As Mr Nelson Mandela points out, these new leaders will play vital roles in the future of our continent.
The Scholarship is open to African students under the age of 30. The award is offered for the duration of one or two years for an Honours or a Masters
degree, respectively. These degrees are to be obtained from a South African tertiary institution registered with the South African Council on Higher Education.
The Scholarship offers leadership workshops and has a peer-mentoring system. The leadership workshops are compulsory, but involvement in the peer-mentoring
system is optional to the scholar. The Scholarship covers the costs of tuition and registration, study material, accommodation and meals, travelling costs from the scholar’s home to their
institution of study (at the beginning and end of each academic year), leadership workshops attendance and a discretionary allowance.
A completed application form is handed in to an applicant’s faculty at his/her institution. Each faculty nominates two students. All the nominees from each
faculty are then supplied to the Institutional Nominations Committee for institutional-level selection. All
Universities send their selected applications to the Mandela Rhodes Foundation (based in Cape Town) where the national-level selection takes place. The Mandela Rhodes Foundation then
short-lists candidates for interview in Cape Town. The short-listed candidates are also given a topic for an essay, which must be handed in prior to the interview as part of the selection
procedure.
The number of Scholarships offered by the Foundation increases every year. An up-date of the figures is provided in the Foundation’s latest year book. The
Mandela Rhodes Fellowship class of 2010 constituted 29 Scholars. The exact number of the class of 2011 is not yet known, but one of the 2011 fellows from the University of Pretoria
includes Mmatshepho Phasha, who is a student in the Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty.
Mmatshepho is part of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria. She is the third student from FABI to be
selected for this prestigious Scholarship. The first was Osmond Mlonyeni (2009 Scholar), followed by Steven Hussey (2010 Scholar). Mmatshepho is a first-year Masters
Microbiology student under the primary supervision of Prof. Emma Steenkamp from the Microbiology and Plant Pathology Department. Her co-supervisors are Prof. Brenda Wingfield and Dr.
Martin Coetzee both from the Department of Genetics at the University of Pretoria.
Mmatshepho says that she ishonoured to be part of this prestigious Scholarship, and of course FABI!
