Raisuyah Bhagwan

Professor Bhagwan completed her Ph.D. in Community and Development Disciplines at University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa in 2002. She is a Full Professor at the Durban University of Technology in the Department of Community Health Studies. She is an innovative developer of curricula and educational opportunities in the areas of spiritual and cultural diversity, alternative healing practices, child and youth care, and community engagement. She is a member of the Association of South African social work educational institutions and the PASCAL International Observatory the focuses on sustainable, socially inclusive, and collaborative efforts for engagement with communities, cities, and regions. Dr. Bhagwan is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work and was a guest editor for a special issue on Indigenous Spirituality and Social Work in 2014. Her teaching emphasizes holistic creative pedagogies, decolonizing approaches, and locally contextual knowledge. She engages in collaborative international partnerships with scholars in the United States and India. In 2019, she received a prestigious National Excellence in Teaching Award from the Council on Higher Education and Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa. In July 2022, Dr. Bhagwan was honored at her inaugural Full Professor lecture in the Department of Community Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences at DUT.