Andy Mason
Andy Mason is co-owner of Artworks Communications, an educational agency focused on humane subjects (such as AIDS), tourism, education and art. From 1994, Mason has produced illustrations and comics on topics such as democracy, civil rights and education. He joined the Ithunga Art Project in 1999, drawing for Mamba and AIDS Sex News.
Jackie Cock, Professor
Jacklyn Cock is a professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology, and an honourary research associate in the Society, Work and Development (SWOP) Institute at Wits. She has been involved in research on gender, militarisation and environmental issues. Her best-known publication is Maids and Madams. A study in the politics of exploitation (1980) and her most recent book is The War Against Ourselves. Nature, Power and Justice. (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2007)
James Ogude, Professor
Professor James Ogude is Senior Lecturer in the African Literature Department , University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is author of the book “Ngugi's Novels and African History: Narrating the Nation”. He is also the author of numerous articles and reviews and co-edited, with Steve Kromberg, Soho Square: A Collection of New Writing From Africa (1992).
Katlego Gabashane
Katlego Gabashane holds a BA (Dramatic Arts) Honours in Media Studies, from the University of the Witwatersrand. She currently works in Heritage as a curator at Khanya College. She also writes and has performed as a lead singer for a Grahamstown-based band called NIA (meaning “Purpose” in Kiswahili). NIA defines their sound as Afro-Indigenous-Soul, with songs in various African languages. The band has performed during the annual Grahamstown National Arts festival (2004 & 2005).
Keorapetse Kgositsile, Professor
Keorapetse William Kgositsile (is a South African poet and political activist, and was an influential member of the African National Congress in the 1960s and 1970s. He lived in exile in the United States from 1962 until 1975, the peak of his literary career. During the 1970s he was a central figure among African-American poets, encouraging interest in Africa as well as the practice of poetry as a performance art. Professor Kgosietsile was the national poet laureate, and continues to be active in writing and cultural activism.
Kgosietsile Letlape, Dr
Dr Kgosi Letlape is the current Chairperson of the South African Medical Association (SAMA) and the immediate past President of the World Medical Association. He was the first black ophthalmologist in South Africa and his interest in primary health care for South Africans sees him participating in various government committees and task teams. Dr Kgosi Letlape is passionate about the need for all South Africans to be able to access health care without having to pay for it at the point of access. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and an International Member of the American Academy of Ophthalmologists.
Lebogang Pheko
Liepollo Lebohang Pheko Social Activist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has a diverse background in community based organisations and NGOs [non profits] in both the UK and Southern Africa in areas including Refugee/Immigrant rights, Welfare law, Human Rights, Economic justice, Citizen participation, Gender and Capacity Building. She briefly worked at the Amnesty Office in London. Upon returning to South Africa from exile Liepollo worked in the public sector managing a public participation process to engage members of the public with provincial government processes. It was one of the first in Africa and the initiative & unit won merit awards. Subsequently Liepollo has been involved in training, curriculum development, development consulting, movement building, social justice campaigns, policy research, advocacy, writing and policy analysis.
Luli Callinicos
Luli Callinicos’ literary career had its origins in her activism and the vigorous pursuit of social and political change. A member of the Congress of Democrats since her youth, she began to write letters to the newspapers as part of a concerted campaign against the apartheid regime after the ANC was banned. She also wrote short articles for Fighting Talk, a journal edited by Ruth First in the fifties and early sixties In the sixties taught English literacy to workers in the SACTU offices in Johannesburg. Callinicos is well known for her trilogy studying the formation of the South African working class: Gold and Workers, Working Life: Factories, Townships and Popular Culture (which won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa), and A place in the City: the Rand on the Eve of Apartheid.
In 1992 she was commissioned by Oliver Tambo to write his biography, which has been published as Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains
Maria van Driel
Maria van Driel is a doctoral student at the Sociology of Work Project at the Universtity of the Witwaterand. Her doctoral work is on single-female headed household in South Africa. She holds a Masters degree from Warwick in Britain. Ms van Driel is a former trade unionist and continues to be active in the new social movements. Ms van Driel has published widely in various journals and is a member of the editorial collective of the Khanya Journal. Ms van Driel is also the chairperson of the Reproduction Rights Alliance.
Nthabiseng Sibanda
Ms Sibanda started Puo Educational Products (Puo) in 2006 after realizing that educational entertainment for her child in African languages and from an African perspective was hard to come by. Puo aims to not only teach children African languages but to also instill a pride in Africa’s rich cultures and heritage, within our contemporary environment. Puo produces flashcards, puzzles, posters, etc. and is also developing a culturally based programme for young kids to enjoy stories, games and learn from other cultures. Ms Sibanda holds a BA Political Science and Economics, a MA International Studies and a Certificate in Financial Management.
Oupa Lehulere
Oupa Lehulere is currently the Director of Khanya College, a member of the editorial collective of the Khanya Journal, and is active in the social movements. He has published numerous papers in various journals.
Patrick Bond, Professor
Patrick Bond is a political economist with longstanding research interests and NGO work in urban communities and global justice
movements in several countries. He teaches political economy and eco-social policy at SDS, directs the Centre for Civil Society and is
involved in research on economic justice, energy and water. In service to the new South African government, Patrick authored/edited more than a
dozen policy papers from 1994-2002, including the Reconstruction and Development Programme and the RDP White Paper, and he taught at the
University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management from 1997-2004. Professor Bond currently also serves as a visiting professor at Gyeongsang National University Institute of Social Sciences, South Korea. He has published several books, such as Elite Transition, Fanon’s Warning and many others.
Phillippa Yaa De Villiers
Performance poet and actress Phillippa Yaa de Villiers is a multi-award winning performer, poet and writer. Among her many awards are the National Arts Festival/de Buren Writing beyond the Fringe Prize 2009. She studied theatre at the Lecoq School in Paris, and after a Journalism degree at Rhodes University and also obtained an Honours in Dramatic Art and Scriptwriting from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Pumla Gqola, Professor
Pumla Dineo Gqola is a feminist writer and academic. She was educated between 1978 and 1989 in schools in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. She is a graduate of the universities of Cape Town, Warwick (England) and Munich (Germany), and has published poetry, short stories, creative experimental essays and academic articles in various magazines, journals and collections, including Chimurenga, Agenda, Drum, Wasafiri , Postcolonial Text and Tyhume.
Rachel Jewkes
Professor Rachel Jewkes is the director of the MRC Gender & Health Unit and is based in Pretoria. She trained as a medical doctor and is a specialist in Public Health Medicine. She has a Masters in Community Medicine and Doctorate of Medicine (MD) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. She has spent the last 12 years researching gender-based violence, particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence (including child sexual abuse). She has authored over one hundred and fifty publications in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and reports. She has worked closely with the South African Government over many years on sexual violence policy in the health sector. She is the Secretary of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative, an initiative of the Global Forum for Health Research, and was a member of the steering committee of the WHO multi-country study on violence against women.
Salim Vally
Salim Vally is a senior researcher at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg and the coordinator of the Education Rights Project. Vally has been a social justice activist since high school; he has been active as a student activist in the 70s, in the unions in the 80s, and presently in the social movements – in particular the Palestine Solidarity Committee. He holds degrees from the universities of York and the Witwatersrand and has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia and York University and has published extensively.
Shehnaaz Bulbulia
Ms Bulbulia, a journalist and media trainer for more than 20 years, is currently the Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalilsn (IAJ).
Bulbulia holds a BA degree from Wits University and a Master of Science in Engineering in Leadership and Innovation from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and Copenhagen Business School. She graduated from the Star Newspaper Cadet School in 1988.
In her career Bulbulia has edited award-winning magazines and won several journalism awards. She has previously held down high profile positions such as Editor of Indigo and Managing Editor of Tribute magazines.
Sifiso Yalo
Sifiso studied Fine Arts at the Durban Institute of Technology. He worked at UmAfrika ( local Zulu weekly news paper), and later at This Day. Highlights of his career include, among others, exhibiting at the "Black and White in Ink" exhibition at the Durban NSA contemporary art gallery. His cartoon strip called Pantsula has featured in Mamba Comix.
Thiathu Nemutanzhela
Is an author of Mibvumbi ya tshanduko, a Tshivenda novel set in Alexandra Township during apartheid, and Ploughing among the Stones. Nemutanzhela has extensive experience in the publishing industry, and now runs his own publishing house, Mangalani Book Services. He is also a graduate of Khanya College.
Zethu Matebeni
Zethu Matebeni holds a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Pretoria. Ms Matebeni is currently working on her PhD, started at Yale University and is currently a PHD fellow at Wizer (Witwatersrand Institute for Social and Economic Research). She has been active in many NGOs around issues of HIV/Aids, and lesbian and gay rights. Ms Matebeni has gathered vast experience in monitoring and evaluating various projects and programmes in Southern Africa addressing HIV/AIDS and other development areas.
Zukiswa Warner
Zukiswa Wanner is a writer, a mother, an African, and a woman (in that order and prides herself on playing all roles equally well). A 2007 nominee of the K.Sello Duiker Awardfor her first novel, The Madams (Oshun 2006), she is also the author of Behind Every Successful Man (Kwela 2008). A prolific writer, she has contributed critical essays, short stories, reviews and articles to OpenSociety, African Writing, Wordsetc, Baobab, Sunday Independent, Sunday Times, True Love, O, Elle, and Destiny. She is also one of the team of writers on SAFM’s radio soapie, and is a blogger for the online literary journal African Writing.