Youth Day event featuring Fhatuwani Nemakhavhani on 24 May 2018

Youth Day, 16 June, acknowledges the role that the youth have played in shaping the future of our country.  As the day falls within the examination period of the University of Pretoria (UP) and our students are then occupied with their studies, the Department of Library Services hosted their Youth Day event a bit earlier, on Thursday 24 May 2018.

This event focuses on the UP youth and the goal of this event is to encourage students to persevere with their studies to achieve their personal goals of greatness despite personal hardships. UP alumnus Fhatuwani Nemakhavhani inspired the UP students with her speech titled “It is possible! You too can do it!” She reminded students not to let their backgrounds determine their futures and encouraged them to dream big and not to be scared to venture into new territories.

The twenty-six year old Fhatuwani Nemakhavhani is a role model for today’s youth as she recently became the first black female actuary to ever be produced by the University of Pretoria (UP) through the South African Actuaries Development Programme (SAADP). She told the attendees her life story – where she was born and bred in a village of Tswinga, in the Limpopo province and matriculated from Marude Secondary school in 2008, with 100% in Mathematics. Despite her excellent results she also experienced setbacks – she was not awarded the SAADP bursary. Fortunately she was accepted to study Actuarial Sciences at UP and received a NSFAS loan. Fhatuwani graduated in 2011 with a B.Sc. Actuarial and Financial Mathematics with distinctions (cum laude) and in 2012 with a B.Sc. Honours in Actuarial Sciences - also from the University of Pretoria. In July 2017, Fhatuwani qualified as an Actuary (FASSA: Fellow Actuary of the Actuarial Society of South Africa) to become the first black female South African Actuary from the University of Pretoria. She currently works for ABSA Life in the Capital and Balance Sheet Management team as Specialist Actuarial Valuator.

The students were spellbound by Fhatuwani’s journey to greatness and couldn’t wait to interact and be photographed with her during the coffee break afterwards. Some of the comments received ranged from “Awesome!” to “Inspring!” and “I related a lot to Fhatuwani’s life story and feel more motivated for my own studies now.”

The album of the event can be viewed on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10155531860806705&type=1&l=77a7be9b95