Co-director: Zackie Achmat

Achmat is a long standing anti-apartheid, HIV/.AIDS, social justice and LGBTI activist who, among others, co-founded the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality (NCGLE) in SA. He is also the founder and former Chairperson of the TAC. He is a SJC secretariat member and co-founder, the Chairperson and co-founder of Equal Education, sits on the coordination committee of OSS and LDSF and co-convenes the Coalition to End Discrimination. He is the former head of the AIDS Law Project. He was nominated with the TAC for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 and is a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 2003. He is also a 2010 OSI Fellow. And the recipient of several other awards and honours – locally and internationally.

Office and Research Coordinator: Gregory Solik 

Gregory Solik is the Office and Research Coordinator. He was awarded a BA LLB from the University of Cape Town in 2007. After graduating, he was employed as a Teaching and Research Assistant in the Private Law Department at UCT, before spending 6 months at the University of Melbourne on exchange. In 2010, he completed his law articles at the firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr in Johannesburg. He spent last year as a research clerk to Justice Sisi Khampepe at the Constitutional Court. He is an admitted attorney of the Cape High Court.

Fellowship Coordinator: Jacques van Heerden 

He completed his BA and BA Hons. in English at the University of Stellenbosch in 2001. After working for training companies as a technical writer, and later as an editor and instructional designer, he completed his Masters degree in English at the University of Cape Town. He now coordinates the Fellowship Programme schedule, curriculum, excursions, materials production, and teaching, as well as teaching a number of seminars in South African history and current affairs.

Researcher: Fritz Jooste

Fritz Jooste has an undergradutate degree in Psychology and Social Anthropology from UCT, and a BSocSc Hons degree in Psychology from Rhodes University. He works as a researcher at NU and has a number of focuses, including analysing budgets at national, provincial and national levels of government; building partner organisation’s capacity to perform budget work; and investigating the outsourcing of municipal services in Cape Town’s informal settlements.

Office Assistant: Kylie Manuel

Kylie Manuel is in her second year of a BA in Psychology through UNISA.