Mandy Hlengwa, a Rhodes 2008-2009 SANPAD RCI student was nominated to represent Rhodes at the University of Pretoria's PhD Student Research Forum. Education Faculties from around the country were invited to send their 'star' PhD students to present at the Forum. On Friday 23 October 2009 Mandy's presentation won her the Forum Award, which is an all expenses paid trip to a local conference of her choice. The criteria were the extent to which the proposal was informed theoretically and the extent to which theory had been used to develop an analytical framework.

Apparently she was a hands-down winner with no other students significantly challenging her. The SANPAD Research Capacity Initiative was very involved in developing her capacity in research methodology and we are therefore very proud to have contributed to the development of her proposal and we wish her all the best with her PhD studies.