This year’s Ruth First Scholar

This year’s Ruth First Scholar (2024-25)

Nafisa Ayman Roza is from Lesotho (of Bangladeshi heritage)

Roza has a BA in Psychology & Criminology from the University of Pretoria. While at university she played a leading volunteer role in various activities associated with the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender, particularly counselling students undergoing HIV tests and facilitating training workshops under the Just Leaders training programme. She was also a very active Vice-Chair and Transformation Officer of UP&Out, the university’s queer student society, providing leadership in the support of fellow students and the promotion of diversity and inclusivity. She won a TransAwareness@UP Project Award for this work.

Roza has been active in community work in Lesotho since high school, founding the Ruteha (Be Learned) Initiative in 2019 to promote consent culture and prevent gender-based violence among young people; campaigning to improve awareness of breast cancer and other health issues; leading creative writing and drama workshops, and teaching music. She says: “I am committed to advancing LGBTQIA+ rights and access, and promoting mental health awareness in the Global South. I am passionate about driving positive social change through intersectional research, advocacy and compassionate community-based care.”

At Durham Roza is taking an MSc in Developmental Psychopathology. She is a member of St Chad’s College, which supports the scholarship by providing subsidized accommodation for all Ruth First Scholars. She has ambitious aims: “I am passionate about community-based psychological research, and I hope to contribute to scholarship on sexual trauma and LGBT neurodivergent populations. I aspire to someday develop a framework to support queer people of colour facing such trauma on an intersectional, decolonial scale.”