Persona

Errol Vawda

Dr Errol Vawda was born in Newcastle in 1929. After completing his high school education at Sastri College in Durban he enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand, where some of the progressive lecturers influenced the development of his political and social ideas. During his studies at Wits he became increasingly aware of discriminatory practices, not only at the University, but also in the wider South African society. When Vawda graduated as medical doctor (as a specialist radiologist), he was employed at McCord's Hospital in Durban. After a few years he went back to his hometown of Newcastle and later opened a private practice in the small town of Brits, where he was only black doctor in town. He moved to Durban, where he settled permanently. He became active in non-racial sports administration. Vawda was involved with non-racial South African Soccer Federation and was leading as a president for a number of years the South African Table Tennis Board, the only internationally recognized non-racial sporting code during the apartheid years. He was elected Deputy President for Table Tennis in Africa and represented both South Africa and Africa at many international table tennis forums. Errol Vawda held other executive positions in the South African Council of Sport (SACOS), which at the time led the way in boycotting all South African sporting activities at international level until there was a free and liberated South Africa. He also played an important role among medical practitioners in Durban, arguing that health of individuals and communities are fundamentally determined by political and economic circumstances, which inevitably requires political and policy interventions. While leaving and working in Durban, Vawda was involved with the independent non-racial trade union movement in the 1980's in their struggle to secure healthy working conditions for their members, and often performed X-ray diagnoses at his own expense. Dr Errol Vawda died in October 1993.