A masters student, Camalita Naicker has been awarded R80 000 Ruth First Scholarship to study towards the field of emancipatory politics at Rhodes. Naicker is the first recipient to receive the coveted and prestigious scholarship.
“I am very happy to be the first student to be awarded Ruth First Scholarship,” she says. Naicker was selected from 13 short-listed candidates.
A young woman of strong convictions, she says, she is excited to be a part of the transformation happening at Rhodes as it begins to purposefully engage its unfortunate history.
Her commitment to issues of social justice and humanism are clear from her previous involvement in organisations such as South African Students Congress (SASCO) and her current involvement 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.
Both Naicker’s life and intended field of study emulate the memory of Ruth First and the award of the scholarship could hardly have found a more suitable and deserving candidate.
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.
She hopes to contribute through her research, to a participatory democracy in which all can speak and all do speak so that “we might move closer to fulfilling our largely incomplete decolonisation project.”
Naicker recently graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Rhodes University and completed in 2011 a joint honours degree in Political and International Studies, and African Studies.
Ruth First remains an inspiration to Naicker who feels that women’s contributions to society are often overlooked in the patriarchal system of social, economic and political relations.
“Ruth First was an outstanding intellectual, scholar and investigative journalist and a revolutionary committed to social justice and human emancipation. As an institution whose slogan is ‘Where Leaders Learn’, we believe that Ruth First personifies the qualities that we seek to cultivate in our graduates and that she serves as an inspirational role-model to young South Africans,” says Vice-Chancellor, Dr Saleem Badat.
The Ruth First Scholarship was established by the UK based Ruth First Trust and Rhodes University in her memory. This scholarship will support students studying full-time at Rhodes University towards Masters or Doctoral degrees in the fields of Politics, Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Economics, Social Policy, Democracy Studies, Development Studies, Media Studies, or studies in cognate discipline with a strong social and human rights orientation.
The scholarship was launched in 2010 and intended to support candidates whose work is in the spirit of Ruth First’s life and work, poses difficult social questions, and who are interested in linking knowledge and politics and scholarship and action.
The Ruth First Scholarship carry an award in the amount of R100 000 per annum for Doctoral level, and R80 000 per annum for Masters level, renewable upon positive progress reports being submitted annually by the candidate’s thesis supervisor.
The Ruth First Trust has committed to the scholarship GBP 85 000 and the Rhodes University UK Trustees GBP 100 000. The University will raise a further GBP15 000 to create an investment scholarship fund of GBP 200 000, so that awards can be made in perpetuity.
Photo: Vice-Chancellor, Dr Saleem Badat congratulates Ruth First Scholarship recipient Camalita Naicker.
By Amy Van Wezel