My Passions: Touching the lives of ordinary citizens with the aim of making a difference. My Challenges: To know how to deal with obstacles that I experience in my journey of discoveries and to know how to employ strategies that will help me in overcoming my challenges. My Vision for the Future: I cannot change the World on my own, however with the limited resouces at my disposal I am determined to make a difference in the communities of Africa! My ultimate goal is to have a leadership school that will empower Deaf women and girls. I was born in Orlando East, South Africa.Both of my parents are Deaf, which basically mean that I am a CODA (Child of a Deaf Adult) and my paternal uncle is also Deaf. I have five siblings and all of us are hearing except for the last one who has acquired deafness at the age of 23.I have been fighting for the rights of Deaf people actively since 2001 to date. As we all know that South Africa is one of the countries that experienced the brutal discrimination of black people for more than 50 years. During the dark days of apartheid people with disabilities were on the back foot of upliftment and empowerment. Programs that catered for deaf people were non existence. I founded my foundation (Tshepiso Mokoena Foundation) to address the imbalances of the past since deaf communities are still faced with challenges of better quality of education, access to health care, access to employment and information and lack of civic participation particularly women. With my involvement in the deaf community as a sign language interpreter, Irealizedthat discrimination and challenges arestill order of the day in the deaf communities. Working with my paternal uncle in the early 90’s made me torealizethat we still have a long way to go inachieving equality and recognition of deaf people. My uncle was a prominent leader who fought for the plight of deaf people during the dark days. At my tender age I was along my uncle to send a message across of equality, right of deaf people and recognition to the hearing world. My uncle founded Silent Ad-Hoc Association in the early 90’s which I was instrumental and active in the association. The Association’s mission was to empower and fight for the rights of Deaf women, youth and children. Thus far the projects that we run are funded from my own personal income. I currently have two jobs and the other income funds the activities of the foundation. We have a Patron who sells our brand topotentialdonors.Our women programs aim to empower Deaf women withentrepreneurship and leadershipskills. The resources and skills required at the moment are to know how to attract funding to enable training for women and to secure relevant training materials.
