This is the attitude that will carry Trevolin Pillay across the stage this week to receive his BSc Honours degree in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at Stellenbosch University’s December graduation ceremony. Born profoundly deaf, Trevolin is part of South Africa’s deaf community, which has its own culture, identity and primary language, South African Sign Language (SASL). He describes himself as just a simple deaf person from Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal, but is determined to help break communication barriers between deaf and hearing people.
He credits his parents, Sagren and Sureshnee, and his brother Veolin for their support, along with his schooling at Fulton School for the Deaf in Gillitts. “I was a top learner in all the grades and received many awards, including the DUX award,” he wrote in an email. After school, he was part of the first group of six deaf students to complete a bachelor’s degree in IT at Belgium Campus iTversity, and the first deaf student to graduate magna cum laude.
When he arrived at Stellenbosch University at the start of 2025, he found himself to be the only deaf person in the learning environment. “My schooling and undergraduate studies were always with other deaf students. I had to learn to adapt to this new environment. Slowly I started enjoying being independent and roaming around the place.”
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