Rebecca Light
A former Head Girl of Union High School, Rebecca Light (Class of 2015), graduated top of her class and attained her BA Honours Degree in Geography and Environmental Studies at Stellenbosch University in 2019.
Rebecca’s achievement will be acknowledged at an official awards ceremony within her department at the university at the end of February. Her Honours Thesis titled: “Love thy neighbour? ‘Integrated’ residential Hamlets of Stellenbosch”, investigated the unique spatial residential change occurring in rural hamlets around Stellenbosch.
The research found that the gated communities being built around the historically coloured communities encourage a culture of fragmentation and segregation, which is not progressive and is out of step with the vision of where urban change in SA should be going.
She is currently enrolled as a Master’s student at Stellenbosch University in the same field on the topic: “The Role of Social Capital in creating resilience in small towns against Drought: a case study of Graaff-Reinet”. Some of her research will be conducted in Graaff-Reinet.
In addition to pursuing her Master’s Degree, she has recently been appointed as an assistant lecturer at the Stellenbosch University Education Department, lecturing the English students in Social Science Curriculum Studies.