Reigning Miss South Africa 2025, Qhawekazi Mazaleni, has opened up about the personal experience that inspired her career as a Speech-Language Therapist.
Reflecting on her journey during an address at the South African Speech Language and Hearing Association’s (SASLHA) 80th-anniversary celebration, Mazaleni revealed how shadowing a clinic session during her Matric year sparked her lifelong mission to bridge linguistic barriers in South African healthcare.
Key Highlights & Academic Credentials
- The Defining Moment: During high school in East London, she shadowed a session with a Xhosa-speaking stroke survivor struggling to communicate with an English- and Afrikaans-speaking therapist. The language gap inspired her to pursue speech pathology.
- Academic Qualifications: Earned her Bachelor’s degree in Speech, Language, and Hearing Therapy from Stellenbosch University (2023), followed by a Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology focusing on autism at the University of Pretoria.
- Keynote Address: Featured speaker at the SASLHA 80th-anniversary conference, where she discussed language equity in public healthcare and education.
“The language gap was too big to conquer in that session. From that day, I set off on a mission: To bridge the gap of language in healthcare and (later) education… Seven years later, here we are.”
— Qhawekazi Mazaleni, Miss South Africa 2025
