Mail & Guardian editor Ferial Haffajee was on Thursday evening in Cape Town appointed Woman of the Year in the media and communications category.
Sponsored by Shoprite Checkers and SABC2, the Women of the Year Awards recognise achievements by South African women in nine categories. This year’s award ceremony was held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The finalists for the 2004 awards were selected from more than 1 000 nominations countrywide.
Haffajee became the first woman editor of a major South African newspaper when she took over the reins at the M&G in January this year — an appointment described as ”a triumph for gender equality” in a statement issued on Friday by the award organisers.
In other categories, Masingita Masunga won the arts and culture award for organising — through her Tinyungubyiseni Talent Promotions company — projects benefiting physically disabled people; poultry farmer Sabina Khoza won the business entrepreneurs award for a community education and production training centre on her farm near Soweto; and Dr Shereen Usdin from Johannesburg — a public health specialist and co-founder of the Soul City initiative — took the health award.
Hailing from Pretoria, Modi Marishane-Nyaka won the sport category for her efforts to revive the sport of handball among the youth and her efforts in drug prevention at rural schools.
Cookie Edwards, the coordinator of the KwaZulu-Natal Network of Violence against Women, was chosen as the winner in the social services category.
In the community affairs category, faith healer Nomthunzi Joyce Mali took top honours for her projects involving orphans and street children in the impoverished Zigodlo Village near Debe Nek in the Eastern Cape.
Professor Letticia Moja, the first black woman to head a South African medical faculty, is the dean of the faculty of health science at the University of the Free State. She was on Thursday appointed Woman of the Year in the education category.
The award in the science and technology category was given to Professor Tebello Nyokong, who is researching a ground-breaking new cancer diagnosis and treatment alternative to chemotherapy.