Poloko Sindiso Ngaba (Sindi) is a PhD candidate at the Political and International Studies Department, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
A lawyer by profession, she studied B Juris and Bachelor of Laws (LLB) at the University of Zululand, Empangeni, South Africa. Thereafter, she was awarded a Fullbright Scholarship to further her studies. She graduated with a Master of Laws (LLM) from Georgetown Law School (Washington DC, USA). She has been admitted as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa.
Her professional experience includes; serving as an executive Head of company secretariat of the Oil and Gas Company of South Africa; Manager legal services and contracts at National Ports Authority of South Africa (both Ports of Cape Town and Saldanha); Judicial officer Cape Town University of Technology; Researcher at Community Law Centre (University of Western Cape); Legal and general administrator at E.S Mchunu & Company Law firm (Empangeni). Sindi also served as a non executive director of the following boards: Civil Aviation Authority of South Africa; Artscape Opera House South Africa and Reatile Group (Pty) Limited.
Award Information
This study examines the multiplicity of roles played by Ruth Segomotsi Mompati as a leader, cadre, comrade, mentor and mother in the African National Congress (ANC) during the anti-apartheid struggle for national liberation. Based on these roles, the study examines the extent to which Mompati's leadership is embedded in the notion of motherhood within the African context, specifically in relation to the dynamics of the struggle against apartheid. Mompati is a recipient of Isithwalandwe, the highest honour awarded by the ANC to those who have made outstanding contributions and sacrifice to the liberation struggle. Elaine Unterhalter (2006) argues that the autobiographical literature on the South African anti-apartheid struggle resembles "heroic masculinity" that relies and maintains "a notion of women's invisibility or homogeneity". Through the life of Mompati, this thesis seeks to build on studies that excavate the leadership of women of the early and mid-twentieth century, in the national liberation struggle against colonialism and apartheid.
