An advocate, a youth talk show host and an educator have been named finalists in the education category of this year’s ShopriteCheckers/SABC2 Woman of the Year Award.
Advocate Molly Malete, Lotus FM presenter CJ Benjamin and educator Carole Podetti Ngono were selected by a panel of judges chaired by Professor Teboho Moja, who has been special adviser to two ministers of education in South Africa.
Malete was selected as a finalist for the role she plays as a community activist who brings understanding of the country’s laws to people in their own languages.
She reaches out to the broader community, using workshops, seminars, presentations and motivational talks on various topics, such as family law, gender equality and development, violence against women, parenting and children’s rights and development.
Benjamin is much more than a voice on the airwaves. The talk show hosts motivates youth in primary schools and high schools across the country where she speaks to an average of 18 000 learners a month, focusing on issues such as sex, drugs, alcohol and relationships. One of her passions is creating drug awareness.
The KwaZulu-Natal department of education has awarded her for her contribution to the matriculation examinations of 2006 after hosting on-air tuition programmes for grade 12 learners to better equip them for their final examination.
Ngono was chosen as a finalist for her work on the Valued Citizens Initiative, a programme on the South African constitutional values endorsed by the national department of education, which she had founded.
Ngono started the initiative in 2000 as a pilot project with the Gauteng department of education at the Ikaneng and Zola primary schools in Soweto with 146 learners. Seven years later the programme has expanded to 1 020 primary and high schools in Gauteng, Free State and Limpopo, with a total of more than 340 000 learners developing their skills and benefiting from the values of the programme.
Winners in the education category, one of seven categories, will be announced at the end of July. The event will be broadcast at 9pm on SABC 2 on August 8 and at 10.30am on August 9 , which is national Women’s Day.