User:Sperrin2023/sandbox

Background
Kopano Matlwa Mabaso (née Matlwa) was born in township outside of Pretoria, South Africa. She began writing in 2004 when HIV was devastating South Africa to "debrief myself [Dr Matlwa] to try to make sense of the crazy times."

===  Education  === She got her medical degree from University of Cape Town and then went on the complete her Masters in Global Health Science and Doctorate (PhD) in Population Health from Oxford University where she was granted a Rhodes Scholarship.

Novels

 * Period Pain/Evening Primrose was in 2017/18 shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Award, the South African Literary Awards and South Africa's Humanities and Social Sciences Award
 * Coconut won the Winner of the European Literary Award (2007) and was a joint winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa (2010)

Leadership
While still in medical school at the University of Cape Town, Dr Matlwa co-founded the Waiting Room Education by Medical Students (WREM). This service educates patients and their families on common health conditions in the waiting rooms of mobile clinics. Dr Matlwa is the executive director of Grow Great, a campaign aimed at mobilizing South Africa towards achieving a stunting free generation by 2030. Stunting is a medical condition where a child has impaired growth and development as a result of "poor nutrition, repeated infection and inadequate psychosocial stimulation." Dr Matlwa is also the founder of the Transitions Foundation, an organization that seeks to help South Africa's youth transition from hopelessness to personal fulfillment through education. Dr Matlwa co-founded Ona-Mtoto-Wako along with her friend Chrystelle Wedi. This is an initiative that seeks to take lifesaving antenatal care to pregnant women in remote and rural parts of developing countries to reduce preventable maternal deaths in these regions. The Ona-Mtoto-Wako ("see your baby" in Swahili) won the 2015 Aspen Idea Award.

In 2016, Dr Matlwa gave a TED x talk in Johannesburg about her Ona-Mtoto-Wako project. She talked about her experience setting up these clinics in dire African communities and how the people there didn't let their situation determine their attitudes. She spoke of their desire to help their community which Dr Matlwa also possesses and how “one cannot hang one’s hopes on the brightness of the moon, instead one must derive one’s motivation from a dissatisfaction and impatience with the dark night, whatever that dark night might be for you."

Coconut
This novel is set in post-Apartheid South Africa and is built around the concept of "coconut" which is a person "who is black but who speaks like a 'white person'". It delves into the complex society that was supposed to be free but "as new freedoms are born with difficulty, [they] often reveal fresh problems or create them". The novel is divided into two narratives, Fifi who is apart of the black middle class and Fiks, a poor black orphan. Both of these protagonists struggle with finding their identity in the new multiracial society; they experience the divide between various African ideals and global Western values of whiteness.

"And you, Fikile, what do you want to be when you grow up? White, Teacher Zola. I want to be white."

Spilt Milk
The novel’s protagonist is Mohumagadi, a black principal of her own successful school. The novel explores the relationship between Mohumagadi and her students and also the relationship between Mohumagadi and a white priest who is living through hard times. While writing this novel, Dr Matlwa-Mabaso felt disappointed with the new post-Apartheid era politics and with personal feelings; it wasn’t everything that was promised. The characters in the novel and their interactions with one another are representative of the feelings of disappointment that the South African “born free” generation experienced. They soon found "deceit and greed and corruption creeping into society"

“After all the excitement, after the jubilation, after the celebrations… Deceit was found the in pockets of heroes...”

Period Pain
In 2016, Dr Matlwa published her third novel Period Pain. This novel discusses how South Africans discriminate against foreign nations and how “xenophobia exists within households and institutions”. It follows Masechaba’s story as she grows up in South Africa dealing with how South Africans are perceived by other Africans as enslaved and spoiled. Through her struggles and marked events in her life, we are given a look into the mental health challenges that not only affect patients but also the professionals who deal with the patients. Dr Matlwa’s Period Pain was shortlisted for the 2017 Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize, the South African Literary Awards and South Africa’s Humanities and Social Sciences Award.

"If this were Apartheid, I'd be one of those quiet white people who just stood by and watched it happen."

Film Adaptation
In 2019, the South African production company KIWI Films bought the rights to Dr. Matlwa’s novel Coconut to make produce a feature film adaptation. The producer at KIWI Films Dineo Lusenga was the one who signed a film rights contract with Dr. Matlwa in Centurion (a South African city near Pretoria). The anticipated film Coconut will join a myriad of other African novels adapted into films such as Chimanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death? And Jacqui L’Ange’s The Seed Thief, just to name a few

=== Grow Great  === Grow Great provides two different programs; Flourish which provides support for new and expectant mothers with classes about health and care and Champions for Children where health workers that provide households with interventions to support maternal and toddler nutrition.

=== Transitions Foundation  === Dr Matlwa is also the founder of the Transitions Foundation, an organization that seeks to help South Africa’s youth transition from hopelessness to personal fulfillment through education. Dr Matlwa was inspired to start this foundation after being invited to the Young African Women Leaders Forum in conjunction with Michelle Obama, the former US first lady. She knew that she wanted to give back to her community, and one way of accomplishing this was through education. Dr Matlwa “knew from her own personal experience [that education] can change not only the trajectory of an individual life but that of an entire family” (Transitions Foundation, Our Story). The foundation offers three different services to children and families; community engagement, academic tutoring, and personal development. Community Engagement offers programs for children in the Allanridge Secondary School in the township of Rabie Ridge, Midrand. Academic tutoring offers students intensive math and science tutoring in problem areas (so these are pretty tailored to the student’s needs). Lastly, Personal Developments seeks to empower these children and families through life and career skills. They offer educational field trips, mentors and book clubs to provide an array of opportunity and possible career interests.

Awards

 * 2007 European Literary Award (for her novel Coconut)
 * 2010 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa (joint winner for her novel Coconut)
 * 2014 Young Physician Leader (selected by the Interacademies Media Panel)
 * 2015 Aspen Idea Award
 * 2015 Tutu Fellowship
 * 2015 Aspen New Voices Fellow