Thandeka is a post-doctoral researcher at King's College London on the project 'Cartographies of Cancer: Measuring and mapping disease in sub-Saharan Africa'. Born and raised in South Africa, she has long been interested in alternative pedagogies and community conscious approaches to early literacy practices. She completed her PhD in 2020 at Cambridge University on libraries, literacy and children's stories in rural Malawi, where spent 18 months living in a rural northern Malawian village learning about local stories and the emergence of village libraries. She is part of the Educere co-ordinating collective, helping to run events and on-board new projects.