Kevina Honajee, 2013 Commonwealth Scholar from Mauritius

MSc Dietetics, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Commonwealth Scholar Kevina Honajee, from Mauritius, studied her MSc Dietetics at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, from 2013 to 2015. She is the first Commonwealth Scholar funded by the CSFP endowment fund to be hosted by this institution.

Kevina graduated from the University of Mauritius with BSc (Hons) Nutritional Sciences in 2012. In the same year, she co-authored a paper on the relationship between childhood eating habits and family socioeconomic status which was published in the Asian Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

At the University of Pretoria, Kevina undertook a research project titled ’Salt intake and prevalence of hypertension among adults attending clinics in the Tshwane district of South Africa’. She benefited from an academic environment which she describes as both challenging and supportive.

Kevina immersed herself in her studies and in wider opportunities. She notes that, ’Steve Biko Academic Hospital, part of the training facility of the University of Pretoria, has some of South Africa’s brightest minds in clinical medicine. This meant that I could engage a highly respected clinician on feeding options in a Stage 4 AIDS patient with significant comorbidities during the morning clinical rounds, dedicate myself to my academic programs during the day, and participate in outreach activities in Mamelodi township, Pretoria West, in the afternoon.’

Kevina describes herself as ’a proud ambassador of the Commonwealth Scholarship programme’. Now back home, she plans to go into teaching to be able to share her expertise in nutrition and dietetics with a new generation of Mauritian students.