“I just knelt down, tears came down, I didn’t know what to say.”
That was Thethwayo Meluleki, 24, when he was told by the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) that he passed his master’s degree in physiotherapy cum laude ‒ and being visually impaired since a child, it’s been a tough road to success.
Meluleki, who grew up in Mfekayi just outside of Mtubatuba, said his supervisor and lecturers called him “on loudspeaker” to give him the good news, which saw him overwhelmed with emotion and his family celebrating over his success.
The virtual graduation ceremony for the UKZN Department of Health Sciences will take place next Wednesday, November 24.
Speaking to the Independent on Saturday ahead of the ceremony, Meluleki said that in grades 1 and 2 he battled to see the blackboard.
“I was not performing well because I couldn’t see when the teacher was writing on the board. I didn’t know I was visually impaired and thought that I was just stupid.
“In Grade 2 my teacher realised something was wrong and made me sit in the front. She also saw my parents, who took me to an optician and I was diagnosed as being short-sighted.
“But as time went on, I could not see anything at night and in high school I went to an eye specialist and the diagnosis was retinitis pigmentosa. It is progressive and gradually destroys light receptors which results in blindness,” he said.
Towards the end of high school, his teacher recommended that he be moved to a special school for the blind so that he could learn braille, but Meluleki refused.
“There were a lot of challenges and sometimes I would omit questions in exams because I didn’t see them. It was so hard but I wanted to stay at high school so I could go to university. I had to learn to be positive,” he said.
He was accepted at UKZN to study for a degree in physiotherapy. The first few months at university were so difficult with both the work and being accepted by other students, that he thought of giving up and going home.
“Some people did not understand my condition and during that first month, I used to cry a lot,” he said. Challenges included being unable to see through a microscope, as well as slides on a projector, while during anatomy he could not see detail such as in blood vessels.
The university assisted Meluleki with a disability trainer to give him support and he would prepare before lectures. It would take him about four hours to cover work which a student with full visual capability could cover in an hour.
“I had amazing lecturers in the department of physiotherapy who understood my condition during my undergrad and while I was doing master’s, and with lots of support also from my family, friends, I kept pulling through,” he said, adding that his strong faith was also key to his success.
“My family are so proud of me, they didn’t believe me when I told them I had passed cum laude,” he said.
Meluleki is working at Ngwelezane Hospital just outside Empangeni as a physiotherapist and hopes to lecture in physiotherapy.
For students who are writing matric and looking towards tertiary studies, he added: “Nothing is impossible and while sometimes I used to go to bed and cry at night and ask ‘why am I like this?’, I realised that I was the only one who could change the situation.
“I knew I needed to be independent and I wanted a future; I needed to have courage. The person next to you might look down on you because they don’t know who you are or what you are capable of, but know that you are unique.
“Completing my master’s degree was a lot of hard work, but I wasn’t going to be ’that poor young man’, you have to rise up,” he said.
The November virtual UKZN graduation ceremony next week will include 210 graduands from the Department of Health Sciences, as well as 395 graduands from the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, 518 graduands from the College of Law and Management Studies and 919 graduands from the College of Humanities.
The Independent on Saturday