Occupational Perspectives

Our next guest is Dr. Frank Kronenberg. He originates from the Netherlands and is a director and co-founder of Shades of Black Works. Frank is Chair of the Board of Directors of Grandmothers Against Poverty and AIDS (GAPA), a Non-Profit Organisation based in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Frank is co-founder of the Occupational Therapists without Borders movement which inspired a number of international ground-breaking publications which he co-edited and co-authored in Occupational Therapy without Borders-Learning from the Spirit of Survivors in 2005. He continued to co-edit and co-author A Political Practice of Occupational Therapy in 2008 and later the Occupational Therapies without Borders - Volume 2: Towards an Ecology of Occupation-Based Practices in 2011. Frank works as an international guest-lecturer and consultant at universities in South Africa, North and South America, and Europe. He is formally affiliated with the Zuyd University in the Netherlands, University of Cape Town, California State University Dominguez Hills & Touro University (United States); Schule für Ergotherapie Eckardtsheim (Germany). Frank conducted doctoral research in occupational therapy at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His phronetic case study with embedded narrative inquiry focused on everyday enactments of humanity affirmations in post-1994 apartheid South Africa, advancing a radical understanding of being human as occupation and health. Before coming to South Africa in 2006, Frank traveled extensively and worked in projects and programs that aimed to advance the plight of children and adults living with disabilities and youth-at-risk in the United States, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Our guest is Dr Lieketseng Ned is an Occupational Therapist (BSc OT, UWC) with an MPhil in Disability Studies (UCT) and a PhD in Health Sciences Rehabilitation (SU). She is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Disability & Rehabilitation Studies within the Department of Global Health at Stellenbosch University as well as an Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Disability. We love to hear from you. Please don't forget to follow and rate us on your platform podcast of choice and engage with us on Instagram @Occupationalperspectives/ https://www.instagram.com/occupationalperspectives/. You can forward all suggestions to occupationalperspectives@gmail.com She convenes the Post Graduate Diploma in Disability and Rehabilitation. In 2019, She was recognised as part of the Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South African Leaders. In 2020 to 2021 she was awarded as a distinguished Jakes Gerwel fellow. She serves as the country representative for the Community Based Rehabilitation Africa Network (CAN). Her research interests are critical disability studies and community integration of disabled people, Indigenous knowledges and methodologies, and decolonial health and education. Her work is published in various accredited internal journals and books. She is also the lead editor for an upcoming International Routledge Handbook on disability and global health.

Our guest is professor Pat de Witt. She qualified as an occupational therapist in 1972 at the Pretoria College of Occupational therapy, later known as the Vona du Toit College of Occupational therapy. She has MSc in Occupational Therapy and Ph.D. from the University of the Witwatersrand. She has worked at Tara Hospital for 5 and a half years and joined the OT department at Wits University in 1978 and has worked there until her retirement. She later became the head of the department between 2004 and 2017 and currently has a post-retirement sessional position. She's passionate about mental and has a wide range of professional interests including student education and clinical supervision as well as primary health care and the OT role within this. Pat has an interest in the broader issues of the profession, its standing, and development in the country and has always been an active member of our national association (OTASA). She has held office on a branch level and on a number of standing committees and within the national EXecutive committee, most recently being President of OTASA for the last 3 years. She is currently holding the position of president emerita for the next year to assist the new president. One of her career highlights includes being awarded the Vona du Toit Memorial Lecture. In her non-professional life, Pat is a proud mother and grandmother. She enjoys reading and gardening and has a keen interest in wildlife and conservation. We love to hear from you. Please don't forget to follow and rate us on your platform podcast of choice and engage with us on Instagram @Occupationalperspectives/ www.instagram.com/occupationalperspectives/. You can forward all suggestions to occupationalperspectives@gmail.com

Our next guest is Professor Elelwani Ramugondo. She is Deputy Dean for Postgraduate Education at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town (UCT). She obtained both her undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from UCT. As a newly qualified occupational therapist, she established the first Occupational Therapy Department at Tshilidzini Special School, Limpopo Province, South Africa. She returned to UCT as an academic in 1998, having served as an occupational therapist in rural South Africa and the United States of America. Professor Ramugondo's work at UCT over the past twenty-two years has focussed on leading with integrity, recognising this to be pivotal in advancing transformation and excellence as interdependent and interlinked concepts. As Head of Division for Occupational Therapy, she led a division which became the most diverse occupational therapy program both nationally and internationally in terms of its staff and students. During this time, she also spearheaded curriculum transformation of the Occupational Therapy Undergraduate Programme. Professor Ramugondo was appointed Special Advisor on Transformation to the Vice-Chancellor at UCT in 2015, and later became a member of the Strategic Executive Task Team, during one of the most tumultuous times in the university's history. In these roles, she participated in complex, highly charged, faculty-based, and institution-wide dialogues which lead to impactful initiatives. We love to hear from you. Please don't forget to follow and rate us on your platform podcast of choice and engage with us on Instagram @Occupationalperspectives/ https://www.instagram.com/occupationalperspectives/. You can forward all suggestions to occupationalperspectives@gmail.com

ur next guest is Aluwani Manenzhe. She is the incoming president of the occupational therapy association of South Africa (@otasa_news ). She qualified as an Occupational Therapist at MEDUNSA in 1997 and she did her masters degree in business leadership at UNISA. She was appointed as an Assistant Director at Tshilidzini Regional Hospital in Limpopo Province since 2004 and is now the Acting Deputy Director Therapeutic Services at the same hospital. Aluwani is passionate about mental health and leadership in rehabilitation services. She served in various boards, including coordination of OT services in Limpopo, vice-chairperson of the national OT forum, and vice president of practice development in OTASA. Her key achievements in disability management include consistent disability screening implemented with follow up treatment in all hospitals in Vhembe District, as well as psychosocial rehabilitation programs and support groups initiated in Vhembe District and the establishment of quality monitoring of OT service through peer reviews and audits as part of standard service monitoring practice. We love to hear from you. Please don't forget to follow and rate us on your platform podcast of choice and engage with us on Instagram @Occupationalperspectives/ https://www.instagram.com/occupationalperspectives/. You can forward all suggestions to occupationalperspectives@gmail.com

Tasneem Abrahams is a self-proclaimed multi-passionate entrepreneurial being, whose love language is acts of service. She graduated as an occupational therapist from UCT in 2002 . Before discovering the OT profession, Tasneem considered becoming a sound engineer! Today she is both an OT and the all-things-digital-nut who founded a web design and digital marketing business in 2015. Through the years she has been somewhat of a chameleon OT, working in a variety of settings from mental health, spinal cord injury, neurorehabilitation, to special education. However she has finally found her settling down space in adult ADHD private practice, and is passionate about developing the mindset and business skills of health professionals, and other coaches in the wellness space through content creation and knowledge-based products and services, through the Private Practice Growth Club. She serves the profession through her role on the Private Practice Standing Committee of OTASA and is a member of the OTASA NHI readiness task team. Tasneem is also on the board of Directors of the non-profit organisation Jozi4Autism. She is passionate about supporting female entrepreneurship and always sees the potential of every glass to be filled. We love to hear from you. Please don't forget to follow and rate us on your platform podcast of choice and engage with us on Instagram @Occupationalperspectives/ https://www.instagram.com/occupationalperspectives/. You can forward all suggestions to occupationalperspectives@gmail.com

Luther Monareng is a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand and the co-founder and owner of a clothing brand, FriendstoBrothers. Luther's career started in Tintswalo Hospital in Mpumalanga Province. While working as an occupational therapist, he was faced with a high patient load and limited resources. This experience broadened his knowledge and led to him appreciating the occupational therapy profession even more. While studying, He co-founded a business with his friend which is making strides today. Luther is interested in South African (Afrocentric) contextually relevant research around social-economic issues that are faced by the majority of South African citizens. We love to hear from you. Please don't forget to follow and rate us on your platform podcast of choice and engage with us on Instagram @Occupationalperspectives/ https://www.instagram.com/occupationalperspectives/. You can forward all suggestions to occupationalperspectives@gmail.com

Dr Ramafikeng is the current President of the Occupational Therapy in Africa Regional Group (OTARG), elected in 2019. She worked as an occupational therapist in mental health practice in Lesotho before joining the University of Cape Town. She is a Senior Lecturer and Undergraduate Programme Convenor in the Division of Occupational Therapy and serves on several committees within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town: one of them being the Steering Committee for Global Surgery. Her areas of expertise include teaching for diversity, providing academic support in higher education, and design and delivery of occupational therapy curriculum that is contextually relevant. She is an early career researcher having obtained her Ph.D. from UCT in 2018 and she teaches and supervises research at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In this episode, she takes us through her journey as a young girl in Lesotho with a dream of becoming a neurosurgeon to eventually studying Occupational Therapy (OT), working at UCT, and her new appointment at Essex University in London. She unpacks her passion for making OT curricular contextually relevant for black students so that they progress through their studies. Matumo explains how self-respect, integrity, and education have shaped the woman that she is today. Finally, she speaks about her lessons about OT in Africa and the future that lies ahead of us. We love to hear from you. Please don't forget to follow and rate us on your platform podcast of choice and engage with us on Instagram @Occupationalperspectives/ https://www.instagram.com/occupationalperspectives/. You can forward all suggestions to occupationalperspectives@gmail.com

Welcome to Occupational Perspectives, The Podcast. Here, we celebrate occupational therapists across the globe who are movers and shakers in the profession. Join me as I unpack their lives, from their greatest failures to pivotal moments that shaped the pioneers they are today. I hope you learn a thing or two from their experiences as you navigate your own occupational journey. Please subscribe to the podcast and share it on social media.