Leaving Inspired, Leading Empowered

A Message to QW+ 2024/25 Fellowship graduates by Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, former QW+ board member, and currently the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.

To Quote This Woman+ Class of 2024/2025 Fellows, some words as you reflect on the contributions that you have made and your dedication over the months. I join with you to celebrate this milestone. I have no doubt that you are exploring the next steps as you graduate and how this experience will shape your future advocacy work.

Congratulations on your journey. The programme you have been engaging in over the past few months has supported you, as women and other marginalised voices in South Africa, to build confidence, develop media skills, and speak out for justice in the beginning of a lifetime of work to serve your communities and make for better societies.

In my own field of work, I’ve often said that the practice of medicine is a tool that drives you. I want to say that as you open and enjoy this momentous evening, indeed there is no future potential to harness. You are already leaders. You are already doing the work. You are already shifting power every single day. Quote This Woman+ Class of 2024/2025 Fellows: you are leading in your own right.

You are incredible and legitimate and must be respected. Bell Hooks often gives us the words when we don’t have the words – what she says has been central to my own personal journey and to this season of my life, and I hope that you can reflect on this too. She says that we must collectively return to a radical political vision of social change rooted in love ethic and seek once again to convert masses of people, black and non black.

So thank you for this honor as a speaker to be in your company this evening. You are moving in the direction of freedom, and the function of freedom is to free somebody else. And those are Toni Morrison’s words. Thank you very much.