Qhawekazi Mazaleni of Gonubie East London was crowned Miss SA this weekend. She speaks about her plans in her first interview with Sowetan as Miss SA:How did you feel waking up on Sunday morning?It was surreal. Last night, it all happened so fast. What was your last activity before bedtime? I took a bath, kicked off my shoes and ate a burger. I thought I’d put some music on and have a celebration dance, but I wanted a quiet evening to really soak it all in.How did growing up in Gonubie shape you?I grew up in Gonubie, but my dad comes from Falakahla village in Dutywa, and my mom from a township called Thabong in Welkom. My parents moved to East London so that my sisters and I could receive a quality education. My parents had traditional values, but we often struggled to balance them with Western values. Growing up in Gonubie helped me understand how to balance different worlds while remaining true to myself.Qhawekazi Mazaleni (Thapelo Morebudi) You have a degree in speech, language and hearing therapy and are pursuing a master’s in speech language pathology. What drew you to this field?In matric, I heard of speech therapy but didn’t quite know what it entailed. I asked to shadow one of the local East London speech therapists who worked with adults. The speech therapist had an English/Afrikaans backround, but the patient she saw that day was a Xhosa elderly man. The session I attended made me realise that our population had different resources based on the language they spoke. It wasn’t until later that I found my calling in children’s speech therapy.Qhawekazi Mazaleni (Thapelo Morebudi) Your master’s research at University of Pretoria focuses on autism. Tell us about it.Last summer, I did my community service year at Mamelodi Hospital. I saw many families of children with autism attending speech therapy, but their parents did not have a good understanding of autism and how to support their children. Through my research, I want to explore caregivers’ understanding of autism in the South African context to develop culturally contextual resources to support families.How do you plan to use the Miss SA platform to take forward your advocacy work?I plan on using the platform to create books and resources in children’s home languages. Children with neurodiversity can have trouble understanding. The challenge is heightened when a child learns to read while also trying to grasp a foreign language. We can make reading more meaningful for children by making the education system more inclusive. Qwawekazi Makaleni was crowned the 67th Miss South Africa at a pageant that took place in Pretoria’s SunBet Arena.
Picture: Thapelo Morebudi (Thapelo Morebudi)
2025-10-27 06:00:00
