Scholars drive their own dialogues on Ethical Leadership

By Siza Ngxabi

The conference of the Community of Mandel Rhodes Scholars (CMRS) has seen an amazing turn-out from the distinguished guests in the past two days who made their own presentations and dialogues on ethical leadership, the likes of Kojo Parris and others, to scholars sharing their own research projects and other initiatives they are involved in. Throughout the conference the central debate has been about ethical leadership – whether leaders need to be ethical or even to the extent that we measure the practise of the promises we make out of leadership.
Scholars discussed wide-ranging matters, from renewable energy, to condom use initiation strategies; from health in the context of malaria to the Dinokeng Scenarios that are a growing debate in the South African community.
Anton Botha is a Masters student at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU). He discussed issues around the allocation of resources – the current energy sources we have and how these could be de-commodified and these resources then channelled to the renewable technology that would make electricity cheaper in the future. These are things such as the use of solar power and the heat generated from underground.
These discussions were intriguing in the sense that they were very diverse yet interesting and challenging. Tsepang Majara, a scholar from the University of Fort Hare, explored a rather controversial topic on the condom initiation strategies among university students. His findings were that issues of assertiveness on the part of the students are the key determinants of whether a condom is used or not.
The issue of malaria in other regions of Africa has in certain instances become a hot topic, just as HIV/Aids has in South Africa. In regions such as Western Kenya it is a major issue challenging the communities living there. Aalyia Sadruddin, an Honours student from Wits, is exploring the dimensions of biomedicine and traditional medicine in this community.
The scholars have provided useful knowledge on a wide range of topics that are thought-provoking, challenging, and are useful and relevant in the present-day global world that we are living in.