Kathryn Jagoe Davies (1977) Hon Doc (1991)

UCT bursary fund to honour memory of disabled rights activist Kate Jagoe-Davies

Kate Jagoe-Davies, who was a pioneer in fighting for the rights of disabled people in South Africa, died last week at her home at Pringle Bay. Jagoe-Davies was confined to a wheelchair after she broke her neck at the age of 15 in a diving accident in East London. Her husband, Bryan Davies, a retired UCT zoologist, said yesterday Kate had been diagnosed with terminal renal failure in 2003 and given three months to live. “I was privileged to have her for another six years and she died in my arms on Wednesday morning.” he said. Jagoe-Davies, who was born in Tzaneen, grew up in East London. She studied fine art at Rhodes University, after having to battle with the university authorities to allow her to attend in a wheelchair. “Then she did a bachelor of education and was going to teach fine art, but joined Anglo instead and became very active in fighting for accessible environments for disabled people. She was invited to join Wits, where she founded the disability unit, and worked in Baragwanath Hospital with disabled people. That experience led her to become a political activist,” Davies said. She later moved to Cape Town and started the disability unit at UCT, was a co-founder of the Disabled People South Africa and helped draft legislation regarding disabled people’s rights in South Africa. She received two honorary doctorates from Rhodes in 1993 and from UCT in 2003. “We’re going to have a memorial service on August 18 – I first have to have a hip operation – when we’re going to scatter her ashes on the Koppie at Pringle behind our house. She wanted to be able to see the house and the sea, and also to be where the baboons were. She had an amazing rapport with them. They were around the house when she died. It was as if the baboons sensed it – and I say that as a scientist and a zoologist – but they always came every time she had a health crisis,” Davies said. Instead of flowers, he has asked that donations be sent to a bursary fund he is setting up in her memory at UCT. “It will have the specific objective of funding disabled students, of any race or creed, who want to study anything to do with global climate change,” he said. Anyone wishing to donate can do so online at http://www.uct.ac.za/dad/funddev/giving or telphone UCT on 021 650 91111 and ask for the Alumni Office.
Cape Times, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, p.5 – Staff Writer