Gugu Mjilo and Musa E. Zulu (both on wheelchairs) flanked by guests during the book launch tour
Her grandmother carried her to school every day. This week, Gugu Mjilo carried her story to readers in three corners of KwaZulu-Natal
NEWCASTLE – Gugu Mjilo, a 2025 recipient of the TRIBUTES Excellence Awards and an employee of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), has completed a three-event launch tour of her autobiography, Akulahlwa Mbeleko Ngakufelwa. KZN COGTA MEC Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi endorsed the tour and his department funded it.
The tour opened at Scottburgh Library on Sunday 21 September, close to Gugu Mjilo’s home community of KwaCele on the South Coast. It moved to Bessie Head Library in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday 23 September and closed this morning at Newcastle Public Library.
Valhalla Arts, the Durban creative company behind the TRIBUTES Excellence Awards, facilitated the department’s support. Its founder, Musa E. Zulu, compered all three launch events.
UvoLwethu Communications, THISABILITY Newspaper, the Usiba Writers’ Guild, Msunduzi Municipality and the IBHUKU Women Authors Exhibition Festival also backed the tour.
Carried to school
Mjilo was born with a physical disability. She started school at Nomandla Primary in Hlokozi. She had no wheelchair, so her grandmother carried her there every day. After the family moved to KwaCele, she attended Shonkweni Primary and then Gugulesizwe High School. Family and friends kept carrying her to class until she finished matric in 2012. That November, the QuadPara Association donated her first motorised wheelchair.
Her book tells that story. The title comes from an isiZulu proverb. Taken literally, it says you do not throw away the imbeleko, the skin used to carry a baby on the back, because a child has died. In practice, it means you do not give up hope after a loss.
At the centre of the book are her mother and grandmother. Both raised her as single parents without jobs. Mjilo told Rising Sun in 2022 that this taught her something early: “I am the only person capable of changing the situation at home.” She writes about her own path and also about what daily life is like for people with disabilities in rural KwaZulu-Natal.
From clerk to PhD candidate
Mjilo holds a Bachelor of Social Science in Government, Business and Ethics, an Honours degree in International Relations and a Master’s in Political Science. She is now a PhD candidate at UKZN’s Pietermaritzburg campus. Her doctoral research examines how children with disabilities gain access to education, from basic schooling to university.
Her first job was as a reformatting assistant in the UKZN Disability Unit. Two months later, COGTA offered her a permanent post as an administration clerk. She won the KZN Young Achiever Award in The Ability category in 2019 and is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society.
By funding the tour, COGTA has recognised one of its own. It has also shown other employers that staff with disabilities contribute far beyond their job descriptions.
TRIBUTES and the work of being seen
For 16 years, the TRIBUTES Excellence Awards have honoured women with disabilities in South Africa, and more than 100 women have been recognised so far. Several recent awardees, including Nicola Rodda and Nkateko Emily Mabasa, have now published books of their own. Each one adds a first-hand account to a literature long written about persons with disabilities rather than by them.
Musa E. Zulu said: “When we honoured Mjilo last year, we did not see the award as the end of her story. Across Scottburgh, Pietermaritzburg and Newcastle, readers met the grandmother who carried her to school and the mother who never stopped believing in her. Her own department has put its name behind her book. That tells young women with disabilities that their voices belong in public life.”
The 2026 TRIBUTES Excellence Awards take place in Durban from 19 to 22 November-honouring another cohort of women of excellence.
