Cape Town - A Malmesbury-based Legal Aid lawyer has received a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as a recipient of the 2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship.
Ilza Le Minnie, who works at the Malmesbury Justice Centre, will take up the fellowship at Texas Tech University where she will do a public management course.
“It’s an honour being chose as a Mandela Washington Fellow.
“The application process was quite strenuous, but after seeing the success of previous Mandela Washington alumni, I knew I had to apply.
“It still feels quite fairy-tale like that a simple girl like me from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape could leave family and friends behind to journey to the Western Cape to find work and make a success of my career as an attorney.”
This year there were over 64 000 applicants from all over Africa and around 3 700 from South Africa.
Le Minnie will be completing the rigorous academic program from June 16 to July 31.
She said that her area of interest was criminal law.
Her mother was a prison warden and as a result Le Minnie and her sister spent time at the prison.
“I never understood why (prisoners) did not have anyone to speak
for them and stand up for their rights.
“In most cases, matters were more of a social nature than a criminal one.”
She added that being chosen as a Fellow “just opens up many more doors” for her to learn and to improve her work in the community.
Ilza Le Minnie
Le Minnie said that she would like to learn from American society and how their judicial system worked.
“I would like to learn from the American society how they implement their legislation to assist the poor and vulnerable.”
Le Minnie said she hoped her story could inspire youngsters to apply for the fellowship.
“I would like to raise awareness of the program and urge all readers to apply for the next cohort.”