There was a moment early in Lt Dipuo Moilwa’s military career when she was very close to giving up. Carrying a rucksack weighing 25 kg during a long endurance march, she felt at the end of her tether.
As her legs began to shake from exhaustion, she recalls touching the grass along the way. “I told myself: Even if it’s hard, you must push through. I prayed to God for the strength to continue. My feet just kept going and going … and I made it through!”
That determination and faith have guided Moilwa through more than 15 years in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) – through failed paratrooper selection, demanding physical training and officer selection – and eventually into a lecture hall at SU’s Faculty of Military Science at the Military Academy in Saldanha.
Today, the third-year student in security and Africa studies is also a dedicated parent and the overall commander of the Student Council’s Masiza Community Outreach.
Her career arc has required remarkable endurance. Increasingly, though, Moilwa has come to see leadership as something more than the ability to endure hardship herself: it is also about noticing hardship in the lives of others and doing something about it.
Learning to keep going
Born in Mafikeng and raised in Klerksdorp, Moilwa joined the SANDF in 2009 after completing school in 2006. She was athletic and drawn to difficult challenges, including paratrooper training. “I wanted to be one of those women who hold her own in a male-dominated space,” she says.
She didn’t pass the paratrooper selection but refused to regard the setback as the end of her ambitions. After moving to the Infantry School in Oudtshoorn, she trained for the military’s fittest soldier competition. In 2011, as a lance corporal, she won first place in the women’s category for the formation competition, second place for the Arms of Service competition and first place in the team category (which consisted of one woman and three men), winning several medals and trophies. She later became an instructor responsible for introducing recruits to basic military training.In 2022, as a sergeant, she participated in the Arms of Service drill competition, where the squad she drilled obtained first position.
By 2023, Moilwa entered the officer selection process. After completing officer formation, she received an opportunity in 2024 to study at the Military Academy.
Academia proved to be a different kind of test. It was the first time she had returned to formal studies since leaving school almost two decades earlier. During her first year in Saldanha, she frequently wondered whether she belonged at university.
“I chose to see the academic challenges not as a sign of inadequacy, but as an opportunity to grow in a new direction, drawing on the resilience I had already proven in myself,” she says.
She responded much as she had to physical challenges in the military: by working steadily, returning to the basics and asking for help. An educational psychologist at SU helped her with practical strategies to manage her studies.
“That experience taught me the importance of asking for help when you need it,” she says. “I have always found support at SU when I reached out and receiving that support strengthened my desire to help others in turn.”
Service shaped by experience
Moilwa’s instinct to help others is rooted partly in her childhood. Growing up with limited means, she learned early that resilience is not about what you have, but about how you push through what you lack. Later, while deployed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2015 to 2016, she was deeply affected by the hardship experienced by that country’s women and children. During patrols, she sometimes shared her food with children.
Those experiences found an outlet in Masiza, the Military Academy’s student-driven community outreach initiative that operates under the motto “touching lives”.
Masiza works with communities to identify needs and respond through projects ranging from painting schools and crèches and supplying educational materials to supporting old-age homes, establishing community gardens and assisting families.
Its flagship event, the yearly Exercise Trans Enduro, combines military endurance with community outreach along a coastal route between Gqeberha and Saldanha.
Moilwa joined Masiza in 2024. At the end of the year, she was chosen to lead the Masiza team during the 2025 Trans Enduro. In 2026, she became overall Masiza commander of the Military Academy Student Council, coordinating initiatives in the Saldanha area and working with the Trans Enduro commander.
She is quick to emphasise that leadership is collective. “I didn’t drive the team alone. I had an incredible team behind me,” she says of the 2025 Trans Enduro.
For Moilwa, community engagement is also not a one-way act of charity. “The bigger purpose for me is going out there and serving the community, because in doing that it’s not about giving or serving, but learning from others too.”
Her commitment was strengthened when she heard SU Rector and Vice-Chancellor Prof Deresh Ramjugernath speak about engaged citizenship.
His message that citizens share responsibility for addressing social challenges resonated deeply with her. “We can’t wait for government to solve problems while we live among these communities and see realities faced by our people every day,” she says.
A soldier, student and mother
Behind Moilwa’s military and university responsibilities is another demanding role.
She balances her studies with parenting, staying closely involved in her children’s daily lives while managing her own assignments and reading. “It’s not easy to balance all the priorities while I’m studying,” she admits. Yet she remains steadfast, believing that the sacrifices are worthwhile and that every effort she makes today builds a better tomorrow for her family and herself.
She credits her mother, brother and wider support network with helping her to keep going. When she needs space for herself, she runs, listens to music, takes photographs, thrift unique vintage items or writes down motivational reflections. These moments of solitude give her the clarity to refocus and keep moving forward.
Moilwa is already looking beyond her undergraduate degree. She hopes to pursue honours studies in history. As an infantry junior officer, she believes that historical insights can inform and improve the strategies of tomorrow’s land forces. “Understanding the past helps us make sense of the present and prepare for the future,” she explains.
She intends to keep serving wherever she finds herself. “Wherever I go next, I want to carry that ethos with me and continue to make a difference, even if it’s simply by helping one person at a time.”
©Higher Education Media Services.