Athena Pedro

Dr Pedro is also a Research Psychologist and an Academic in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Western Cape. She was appointed as a Lecturer in August 2012. For the past seven years she has taken a special interest in working with children presenting with special needs, specifically children with learning difficulties and developmental delay.

She is particularly involved with the development of remedial programmes as well as presenting psycho-educational workshops for parents of special needs children as well as preschool educators working with preschool children. Much of her focus has been on providing support for parents and educators who are from impoverished communities. She also trains facilitators to work with primary school learners so that these facilitators can be an additional support that offers more direct guidance and facilitate learning within a classroom context or within a home schooling environment.

Dr Pedro is also involved with various research projects within the field of Early Childhood Development and Education. She has also established both international and national (local) collaboration partnerships with colleagues in the early childhood sector. She has published numerous manuscripts in peer accredited journals and 1 book chapter. She has graduated 27 postgraduate students and currently supervises 14 postgraduate students. She regularly attends academic conferences where she is often invited to present her research findings. She was also awarded the ‘Best Presentation Award’ last year in Italy (2018). Dr Pedro has also been awarded with several scholarships and grants such as the National Research Foundation Prestigious Award (1999-2000/2001-2003/ 2008-2009), the VLIR scholarship (2008-2009) as well as Thuthuka Funding 2017-2019 and 2020-2022. She graduated with a B.A. (Psychology) and Honours degree in Psychology with a Cum-laude qualification.

Dr Pedro’s passion and interest lies in the upliftment of communities by building capacity among community stakeholders like parents, caregivers and teachers who are primary socialisation agents. She believes that this approach not only create direct positive impact at grassroots level but also ensures sustainable change within communities as community members/ stakeholders take ownership themselves. Thus empowering community members to be the change they want to see. Dr Pedro also strives to instill within students a sense of personal desire and commitment to embrace their indigenous knowledge/heritage, gain understanding of a context of vulnerable communities and how they overcome daily adversities. She ardently motivate developing scholars to become deliberate social agents who strive for social justice and community upliftment.