PRETORIA-Dr John Molepo is the Tshwane University of Technology’s youngest alumnus to have a PhD in public affairs conferred on him. The activist and lecturer have been working hard to raise funds for underprivileged students – This year, Molepo’s initiative has helped educate more than 200 black students.
On Wednesday, John Molepo became the youngest person at 29 to graduate with a doctorate in public affairs from the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). Molepo said that the achievement proved to other young people living in townships that anything is possible. He said, “It says a lot for other black youth and young people from our townships – anything is possible.” he told Pretoria News.
Molepo has raised more than R300 000 for underprivileged students, is renowned for his #Thusangwanageno campaign which he started in 2017. At the time, he said he had seen a need for fund-raising for students from deprived backgrounds.
Dr Molepo always began his morning in the busy Ruth First Road in Soshanguve, 30 kilometres north of the capital city Pretoria pleading with motorists to donate as little as R5.
The doctorate graduate admitted that it was emotionally straining to juggle academics and work. However, his friends and family acted as his support system and it gave him to strength to push through.
“I was depressed for a while as the pressure was mounting, juggling academics and work; life’s own trials and tribulations can leave one exhausted and not wanting to go any further but I persevered because I knew I was doing this for this whole community as so many young people need us to be examples.
“I want this to serve as an inspiration and fuel to young people facing the difficulty of any kind that it is possible, especially those we collect fees for,” he said according to Pretoria News.
The 29-year-old started raising money for underprivileged people looking to further their studies in 2017. Daily Afrika gathered that this year alone, Molepo’s initiative helped 200 black children study. He has now set his sights on another PhD degree, for which he applied at the Unisa.
Molepo also dreams of constructing libraries throughout Soshanguve.
Meanwhile, a professor of public international law, Dapo Akande, was recently honoured with a portrait at St. Peter’s College in Oxford University, United Kingdom.
The honour made him the first black professor to be bestowed such a privilege in the college. Akande is Yamani fellow at St Peter’s College and co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC). He has spent most of his adult life as an educator.
He started as a part-time lecturer at London School of Economics and then at Christ’s College and Wolfson College, Cambridge from 1994 to 1998
