WATCH: UKZN siblings graduate cum laude, spark change
Durban - Our country’s leaders need to be further educated about the environment to make laws that will save the country going forward.
This is according to the ‘Catwalk graduate’s’ brother, Kreesan Palan, 25, who graduated summa cum laude with his masters in Geology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal this week.
Palan’s 22-year-old sister, Chrysantha ‘Chrys’ Palan, gained social media fame this week, after flamboyantly strutting on the graduation stage in celebration of her cum laude Honours in Media and Cultural Studies.
Palan specializes in marine geology and for his research explored the creatures within Cape Town’s submarine canyons, which are ‘valleys on the seabed’, he explained.
“I have always enjoyed being outdoors, going camping and fishing, and now I get to practice this as a career, and hopefully become a lecturer one day,” he said.
Palan believed education is empowerment, and would alleviate the global warming crisis.
“The human breed lacks education. People in power, at a municipal level for example, don’t have the scientific background to enforce legislative laws that will prevent the exploitation of natural resources. For example, beach sand is being exploited because of over-engineering, and we can prevent that,” he said.
About his little sister’s, now famous, graduation walk, Palan laughed and said his sister deserved to celebrate.
“I’m a shy boy, and that’s just my sister. She really deserved the celebration,” he said.
While, Palan calls for the public to be more conscious of the environment, Chrys urged the public to start thrift-shopping to pull the plug on social systems behind the fashion industry.
Chrys, a bubbly fashion and entertainment enthusiast, punctuated her responses with “Yasss Gurrrl”.
She told the Sunday Tribune that her graduation extravagance meant freedom from previous trauma.
“I went through a traumatic incident in 2017 and found refuge in my books. So my graduation was special and I felt liberated from the pain,” she said.
Her graduation dress was self-made, as her research into Durban’s fashion found that those who thrift shop create their own identity and make a statement with their clothes.
“And sometimes that statement is non-conformance to dominant trends that the fashion industry demands. By thrift shopping we stand against environmental abuse and the systems created by the big business fashion industry,” she said, adding that she too, would not conform to society’s expectations.
WATCH: THE UKZN CATWALK GRADUATE
SUNDAY TRIBUNE