More Witsie heroes

Photo (l-r): Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron, Professor Aubrey Sheiham and Dr Helena Sheiham, Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan 'Venkat', Stuart Philip and Mukovhe Morris Masutha

• As a young boy Dr Harry Allan Broekman dreamt of becoming a doctor. He repeated his matric until his marks were good enough to get into Wits, and worked for several years as a bank teller to save for his studies. Finally, he graduated with his Wits medical degree in 1969 and worked at Coronation Hospital and South Rand Hospital. When he died in 2013, he left R7-million to the Wits Medical School so that others could study medicine without the obstacles he had faced.

• A generous donation by San Francisco couple Mr Derek Schrier and Ms Cecily Cameron has made it possible for Wits to endow, in perpetuity, a Chair in Development Economics in the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management. Their gift of $1-million (about R15-million) was made through their United States-based EGG Foundation. The Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron Chair in Development Economics was launched in July 2015, with Professor Vishnu Padayachee, a Distinguished Scholar at Wits, as the first chair-holder. “It is a rare privilege to be given the opportunity to research and rethink development economics issues, monetary policy, macro-economic policy and their place in South Africa,” says Prof Padayachee.

  Mr Schrier and Ms Cameron hope that their support for the Chair will inspire similar initiatives from others with meaningful ties to Wits. “Together we can ensure that Wits continues its commitment to academic excellence, affordability, and accessibility,” says Ms Cameron.

• The late Professor Aubrey Sheiham and his wife Dr Helena Sheiham donated over R8,8-million to Wits to support the Vice-Chancellor’s focus on addressing inequality. Because the donation was made from the UK, tax relief in the form of Gift Aid could be claimed, which increased the donation to over R11-million in total. The Sheiham donation is currently supporting the School of Public Health to research the social determinants of health and health inequalities. The donation will also foster links with other southern African universities and with University College London (UCL) in the UK. Together, researchers at Wits and partner universities will use the donation to contribute to efforts to reduce pernicious inequality.

• Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan and Professor Hamsa Venkatakrishnan are funding full bursaries to provide scarce skills for the accounting profession.

• Stuart Philip (BCom 2016, BCom Hons 2017) forfeited a Wits sports bursary for four years in favour of a student who was more in need of financial assistance. Now 23, he has already been a keen hockey player for 19 years, and came to Wits wanting to be on the hockey team, as well as to get a good education. He was offered a bursary, but felt that since his family could afford to pay fees, “it would have been a bit selfish of me to accept the bursary and I knew it could benefit someone else a lot more.” Stuart was captain of the Wits hockey team in his third and fourth years and received the Mel Siff Trophy for Sportsmanship at the 2016 Wits Sports Awards. He played for Old Eds club for the first few months of 2017 before leaving for the USA to travel and spend time as a water-skiing instructor at a summer camp. Stuart did his Honours in Information Systems.

• Thusanani Foundation, established in 2010 by former Wits SRC president Mukovhe Morris Masutha and Ntandokabawo James, has celebrated its first group of Wits graduates in scarce and critical skills. Nqobakonke Ndaba and Phumuza Xulu have completed their Bachelor of Clinical and Medical Practice degrees. “We extend our sincere gratitude to the National Skills Fund for supporting all of our class of 2014 fellows through the Pixley Ka Isaka Seme Scholarship,” the Foundation said. Thusanani has supported hundreds of students at South African universities in a holistic way. Its volunteers speak of their “moral obligation” to do more for those in need. (Read more in the WitsReview of December 2015.)

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