PROFESSOR MARIAN JACOBS

I am the former Dean of Health Sciences and Emerita Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Cape Town, and a proud alumna of South Peninsula High School, with which I have had the privilege of retaining a connection for almost 60 years. 

Aadil Moerat was my well-loved friend and comrade, and also later, my bright-eyed student in paediatrics.  I followed his journey through medical school and into practice with great admiration, and then with such profound sadness at his untimely passing. His life as a health worker was marked by his deep commitment to care for the most vulnerable in society, and by his unwavering contribution to efforts to advance universal health care and social justice in health and all its determinants.

The Dr Aadil Moerat Trust was inspired by his dad, the late Mr Noor Moerat, principal of South Peninsula High School, who established a bursary fund in his name almost thirty years ago.  Aadil was admired and loved by his family, his friends, his community, his patients and all whose lives he touched.  That love has been the impetus to the formation of the Trust which strives to embody and uphold those values which characterised Aadil’s life and practice, and which seeks to sustain this through supporting those health sciences students who share this mission. 

It is indeed an honour to serve this Trust, and in so doing, to uphold Aadil’s legacy.