04/05/2022
H😄ard word certainly pays off. :-)
Molatela Morudu’s dream to walk across the stage and collect her qualification will come true when she graduates with her Bachelor of Music four days after her birthday this April. She missed the opportunity in 2020 when she graduated with her Diploma in Music Education.
Molatela, 31, whose main instrument is voice, wants to study for her master’s in Music Therapy or the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) next year, depending on funding. Meanwhile she is also completing an ABET (Adult Basic Education and Training) course through UNISA.
She also tutored musical theory to first-year students for a short period just before lockdown started.
“It has been two years since drastic change prevailed in our lives. With change came great loss. We lost our loved ones, employment opportunities, occupations and others lost their purpose of existing” Molatela says.
“During my final year, lectures were moved to online platforms and I had just become a new mom. I remember trying to complete one of my assignments on the hospital bed just a few hours after giving birth”, she says.
The nurses thought she was crazy, but what had pushed her to strive and persevere with her studies were the grand memories she had created with the Music Society which she had founded in the previous year, with some 60 members.
The Beyond the Classroom (BtC) programme founded by Student Governance’s Kim Elliott and her team, also played a huge factor in empowering her to keep on reaching her end goal.
Currently, she is teaching music theory to her neighbour's kids for free. Next month, she will start with an internship with Dees Holding.
Molatela was born and bred in Johannesburg, Soweto, and she is now living in Gqeberha with her mother, her son and niece. Her son Thorisho (meaning praise) turned one on 20 April.
