I welcome you to this issue of the Faculty Newsletter. It has been an emotional month since the passing of our beloved Dean Professor Bongani Mayosi.  UCT, as well as the global health community, will feel the impact of his legacy for many years to come. For posterity, we share this link to the many activities and tributes posted.

One way to honour Professor Mayosi’s legacy is that we continue to strive for the excellence to which he was so passionately committed. This issue of the Newsletter would have made him very proud of the recent achievements in our Faculty, a few of which are covered here. In fact, I am reliably told that he had forwarded many of the ‘leads’ for articles submitted.

We are especially proud of the new professoriate of young women academics appointed in the Faculty this year, as well as the achievements of our students and emerging young academics. We are delighted to share the background stories to a few of these.

In June, we hosted an Inaugural Alumni Open Day celebrate the Faculty’s 106^th anniversary. This first open day was special to us, as we remain committed to strengthening partnerships with alumni of our Faculty. The highlight was the unveiling of the Centenary Donor Recognition Wall with former Dean Emeritus Professor Marian Jacobs, and we share a link to a video-recording of this.

There are many unsung heroes in this Faculty who work tirelessly to achieve better lives for everyone.

Earlier this year, a new Safety in Health Simulation Centre opened at Groote Schuur Hospital to help foster safer practices in healthcare through an educational focus on patient and healthcare worker (staff) safety. Congratulations to the team from the Clinical Skills Centre for your  hard work in realising this public-private partnership which will ultimately benefit patients.

Primary Health Care (PHC), with the goal of Health for All, has been a lead theme in the Faculty since 1993. This year, along with global health leaders, the Faculty is strengthening its commitment to PHC, 40 years after the adoption of the Alma Ata Charter. Please support the PHC@40 six week-long programme of talks and seminars to build awareness, scheduled to end in mid-September.

PHC is central to the work of SHAWCO Health, our student led community-based health service established in in 1943 to bring health to underprivileged communities.  75 years later, they have grown beyond expectation in service and reach. They are marking this milestone year with a number of groundbreaking events, one of which was treating over 1000 new patients during a 750 km trip in four days anniversary trip to rural communities. Halala, our SHAWCOHealth students, Halala!

Look also for the articles on outreach projects aimed at building mathematics and science capacity among youth from disadvantaged areas.

We feature the powerful address and video recording of Prof Elelwani Ramugondo’s talk to commemorate Youth Day: ‘Do we remember what they died for? Commemorating our youth’.  Her address was a sharp reminder of the challenges that remain in achieving meaningful and substantive transformation in our country.

In this issue, we interview the Committee Chair and Deputy of the Faculty Transformation and Equity Committee (TEC) for an update. In future, we shall allocate a space to focus on transformation in the Faculty.

We dedicate this Newsletter to the memory of Professor Mayosi.

Yours sincerely

Dr Reno Morar

Acting Dean