MBBCh students excel in changing children’s lives
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Since 1979, the Division of Community Paediatrics has offered the Dallas McKenzie prize to a final year MBBCh student who has made a distinguished contribution
The award recognises an activity or set of activities that a student may have undertaken during his/her undergraduate career that promoted the health and well-being of a child or group of children.
In 2021, we were once again amazed at the wonderful work done by our health science students that largely goes unrecognised within the faculty. The 2021 prize-winner was Justin Carlse. While in MBBCh II, Justin volunteered to teach life and physical sciences to grade 8 and 9 learners in Diepsloot. Recognising the huge unfulfilled need, he started his own non-profit organisation the next year - EduLift SA - together with fellow students, and within months the organisation was offering weekly classes to 240 students in various grades and in multiple subjects. A partnership with Crawford College Lonehill allowed use of their classrooms, with their learners also serving as tutors.
The Covid-19 pandemic forced a halt to the initiative, but Justin re-directed his efforts to starting the Edulift SA “Meals for Life” programme in April 2020. The project targets homeless individuals and vulnerable children. Over a seven-month period in 2021, Meals for Life delivered over 43 000 meals. Most incredible is that Justin managed to do all of this while successfully completing his MBBCh degree! Check out the organisation’s website: https://eduliftsa.org
However, Justin was not the only student who made such wonderful and heart-warming contributions to children’s lives. Certificates of Achievement were also awarded to Aluwani Nedzinwani, Bhavisha Amrat and Raheema Adam. More on their efforts in the next newsletter.
