WOMAN OF THE YEAR | Relebohile Moletsane quietly transforming futures

By Sanaa Maja

For Prof. Relebohile “Lebo” Moletsane, the first destinations worth exploring weren’t reached by planes but through the pages of great books.

In rural Matatiele, Eastern Cape, those books offered glimpses of possibilities far beyond the village she called home. “Growing up, we didn’t even dream of something different, but I was fortunate enough that books could transport me to another life experience. However, for many kids, there was no access to books and therefore no access to what could be,” Moletsane says.

That belief — that every child deserves the chance to imagine a different future — has shaped her life’s work.

Today, Moletsane is the John Langalibalele Dube Chair in Rural Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the inaugural holder of the FALF-Wits-NRF Research Chair on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide. Her scholarship spans education, psychology, and gender, examining how poverty, violence, and inequality shape children’s lives, particularly girls in rural communities.

By every measure, her own journey has been extraordinary.

The architecture of apartheid made it all but impossible for a Black woman from rural South Africa to find her way to a United States university in the 1980s. She did, anyway, and has spent the decades since ensuring that children from backgrounds like hers can imagine possibilities once denied to them.

Moletsane was the youngest of six children and the first in her family to attend university. “I was fortunate enough that this was at a time when everyone in my family could come together and contribute to me attending,” she says.

She enrolled at the University of Fort Hare, which counts Nelson Mandela among its alumni, where she studied psychology before completing a university education diploma. She later taught geography and English at a local high school for five years before pursuing her postgraduate studies in the US, eventually earning a master’s degree and doctorate in education from Indiana University.

I want children from rural areas to have access to opportunities I never had.

—  Prof. Relebohile Moletsane

Although her academic path ultimately led her to education, psychology never disappeared from her work. While education provided the tools to improve children’s opportunities, psychology helped her understand how poverty, violence, and social norms shape the way children see themselves and the futures they believe are possible.

Leaving South Africa to pursue her studies was both exhilarating and intimidating.

“It was exciting, but also frightening. My education and my first job had both been in rural schools, and it was the first time I had ever been to what, at the time, seemed like a big city,” says Moletsane. “This was the first time I was outside of a rural community.”

Living in the US exposed her to resources and opportunities that had been unimaginable while growing up in rural South Africa. The experience reinforced her conviction that geography should never determine the future of a child. “I want children from rural areas to have access to opportunities I never had. I want them to have ideas and to imagine a different life,” she says.

For Moletsane, expanding children’s imaginations is just as important as expanding educational opportunities. “My work aims to help girls imagine a better or alternative life. The fact that you are born in a rural area doesn’t mean you can’t become what you want to become,” Moletsane adds. That philosophy has guided decades of research into the challenges facing girls in rural areas.

Her work examines how poverty, unequal gender norms, and gender-based violence intersect to limit girls’ education and general well-being. Rather than treating education simply as attendance or academic achievement, she sees it as deeply connected to children’s safety, mental well-being, confidence, and sense of agency.

“Poverty and gender norms influence decision-making about resources in the home. If someone has R20, they will rather send a boy to school than a girl. In some of the rural communities I work with, girls are married off very young so families can make up the resources,” she says. “Early marriage comes with high rates of gender-based violence and the silencing of their voices … Our work aims to change all of that and help girls to talk about their experiences and what they want for themselves.”

Her projects bring together learners, teachers, parents, government officials, traditional leaders, police officers, and social workers. Children are encouraged to speak directly about the issues affecting them, while communities work together to develop practical strategies that can continue long after the researchers have left. “We don’t stop at just educating communities on this topic; we co-create strategies for change. This then becomes something that they themselves can implement [and allows them to] identify who else they can talk to about these issues,” Moletsane explains.

Part of that work involves training police officers, traditional authorities, and social workers to respond to child abuse cases ethically and sensitively, recognising that meaningful change requires an entire community. Conducting research in remote communities, however, is rarely straightforward. “It involves a lot of travel, transporting a lot of people to meeting points. What would have taken us one day in Joburg takes us three days in those rural areas because of the hectic travel time,” she says.

Funding is another constant challenge. “Financial resources are a big problem because it costs a lot to run these programmes,” Moletsane says.

Her work has earned her national recognition. In April, the University of the Free State conferred an honorary doctorate on Moletsane for her contribution to rural education. “At first I thought it was a prank, so the vice-chancellor had to call me to confirm it was true,” she says, laughing. “It was a very humbling experience.”

While awards acknowledge the impact of her work, Moletsane says her greatest inspiration has always been much closer to home. “My mother worked very hard for very little. She did everything she could to make sure we all finished high school.”

Outside her family, she has long admired anti-apartheid activist, educator, and women’s rights champion Ellen Kuzwayo, who had a similar life goal to Moletsane. “I like her principles and dedication to education and real social and community development,” she says.

As she reflects on the legacy she hopes to leave, Moletsane returns to the values that first shaped her as a young girl in Matatiele. “I want people to know that I did the best I could with what I knew and what I had. And that my best wasn’t just for me — it was for other people and communities beyond my own.”