First black dentist at UWC celebrates 32 years of excellence in medicine

The first black dentist to graduate out of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) is celebrating 32 years of excellence in medicine.

Dr Rhova Kharivhe and 21 of his classmates, who graduated just before the end of apartheid in 1994, reunited for the first time last month.  The university invited them for a reunion and to celebrate being part of the largest alumni of dentistry in SA. 

Kharive, 56, and his classmates started their first year of university just before the state of emergency in 1985, which meant they had to miss half a year of school.

“Passing my first year of university under those circumstances was very difficult but I managed to get into my second year in 1986,” he said.  

Kharivhe, who hails from Ha-Makhuvha, a village 50km north of Thohoyandou, said he was able to attend UWC because of a homeland bursary he received. “I was always number one or number two at school because I was a bit on the bright side,” he said. 

“During those days homelands would automatically give you a bursary when you get into medicine or dentistry, so I did not have to worry about my tuition. Also, if your tuition was less than the allocated amount, for example if they gave you R20,000 but fees were R16,000, then the rest of the money would be given to you on a monthly basis.”

He said studying in Cape Town after living in Limpopo his whole life was a culture shock. “I had to take a train from Limpopo to Park Station [Johannesburg] and a 25-hour train [journey] to Cape Town,” said Kharivhe.

The doctor said it was the first time he was in class with other races who mostly spoke English or Afrikaans as their first languages.

“The language was a challenge because I was the only black guy and the high school I was coming from was one where your English teacher is also Venda-speaking and he would also explain something to me in Venda,” he said.

He also lived with a kind coloured family in Cape Town because residences were full during a time when races were still segregated.

Kharivhe grew up in poverty and said his family, including distant relatives, relied on the money his mother got from the government after her husband, a police officer, passed away. 

“Getting something from the homeland government helped a lot because I was not going to get anything from home. I went into dentistry by myself ... it was like going into the wild all by myself,” he said. 

Like many village girls and boys, Kharivhe often went to school without any shoes but had a determined mother who wanted him to be the best. “I was like a trophy to her. She would iron my clothes and even though sometimes we would go to school barefoot my shirt was always ironed,” he said.

To Kharivhe, being the first black dentist to graduate from the school was a surprise but he is happy that he never gave up.

“I have always been very determined. If I put my mind to something I would never be the kind of person who would give up. Even when things would happen that would tell me that I am a black person I would just focus on what I had come to achieve,” he said. 

After working at Donald Fraser Hospital in Venda, Kharivhe then started working at his own practice full-time in 1994. 

“I have to run this practice in a way that works for my community, which is providing lower prices and understanding how things like strict and rigid appointments don’t necessarily work in a village,” he said.

Although he faced challenges of getting his community to visit his practice because dentistry is not very popular in rural areas, he now sees 20 patients a day.

Prof Saadika Khan, a specialist in prosthetic dentistry and lecturer at UWC, was also a graduate of the class.

“We were studying towards our five-and-a-half-year degree during the heart of the 1985 boycotts. This resulted in our final year being extended for a further six months due to the political disruptions at the time. But this was something we were very used to, and our class of 22 all successfully completed our studies and went on to produce prominent achievers in the field,” said Khan.