The youngest daughter of the late Chief Albert Luthuli- Thembekile Luthuli-Ngobese has passed away at a Durban hospital. She was 79 years old.
Chief Albert Luthuli was the president of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1952 until his death in 1967. He was also Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize Laureate in 1960.
Spokesperson for the Ngobese family and daughter, Nana Ngobese says Luthuli’s death comes as a shock as it happened quickly.
“It’s a brain tumour with aneurysms where the artery burst in the brain. She couldn’t recover from that. It just happened very quickly. She went to bed on Wednesday. The very same night around 11pm she complained of a severe headache.”
Community development
The late Thembekile Luthuli-Ngobese spent her life in community development uplifting KwaZulu-Natal households, especially those headed by women.
Her daughter Nana Ngobese says, her mother spent her life engaged in community service.
“My mum’s typical struggle was community development all her life. She worked at the Natal University at her younger years in the anthropology department. She even co-authored a book about women’s strife when their husbands are taken away to work in the mines – which was concentrating on the consequences of the husbands leaving home, with the women looking after the families. From there on, she went and worked at the Child Welfare Society with social workers – again concentrating on families that were basically broken.”
Luthuli-Ngobese’s funeral service takes place on Monday morning in KwaMashu in Durban.
