Staff

Helene Perold: Executive Director
Helene has worked in education, media and development for the past 30 years. An educationist, evaluator, facilitator and researcher, she has been involved in a wide range of fields, including educational media, youth development and community service. Most of this work has been done in South Africa with public, non-governmental and private organisations. In addition, Helene has undertaken assignments in Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Germany, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, the USA and Zimbabwe.

Salah Elzein Mohamed: Co-ordinator
Salah holds a master’s degree in development planning and is currently pursuing a PhD in urban development at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He has more than ten years’ experience in youth leadership and involvement in civil society organisations and media production in the Sudan. Salah has presented papers in local, regional and international youth conferences focusing mainly on the roles of youth in community development and the promotion of the culture of peace and conflict resolution. Recently, he undertook research projects on urban and peri-urban informal settlements and published a book entitled Planning for Crime Prevention in Khartoum. Salah is responsible for research and writes for VOSESA Focus.

Philanie Jooste: Publishing Manager
Philanie holds an honours degree in publishing from the University of Pretoria where she also served as news editor and article editor at the student newspaper. She previously worked in a range of organisations including as a translator for Beeld, as an office manager for a small book import and distribution company, in the marketing department of the National Museums of Scotland, as the editor of a community newspaper in Lydenburg, and as a publishing co-ordinator and copy-editor at READ Educational Trust. She has also worked as a freelance translator, copy-editor and proofreader. Philanie is the editor of the newsletter, VOSESA Focus.

Benter Okello: Finance Manager
Benter holds a master’s degree in public and development management from the University of the Witwatersrand. She previously worked as an education programme assistant at the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), a bookkeeper at the Heinrich Boell Foundation, and managed a publishing project on ICT for development funded by OSISA. She has also worked as a part-time events organiser for organisations like the South African Council of Churches and the Heinrich Boell Foundation. Benter provides fundraising and financial support to VOSESA.

Rejoice Shumba: Project Co-ordinator
Rejoice holds a master's degree in sociology from the University of Johannesburg. She obtained her honours degree at Rand Afrikaans University (renamed University of Johannesburg) and her bachelor's degree from the University of Fort Hare. Her master's dissertation was entitled 'Identity Construction in the National Youth Service of Zimbabwe'. She has written and presented papers on youth identity and on the national youth service of Zimbabwe. As a postgraduate student, she worked in the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg as a teaching assistant and as a departmental assistant. She also worked on various research projects at the Centre for Sociological Research at the University of Johannesburg as a fieldwork supervisor. After completing her master's degree, she worked for NLA Project Consulting as a research consultant before joining VOSESA as a project coordinator.

Paula Krynauw: Database and Resource Centre Administrator
Paula holds honours degrees in information science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and in publishing studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. She has worked as a librarian in academic, research, and school libraries where her major interests were bibliographies, information dissemination and client support. For the past five years she has worked in the mining and education sectors as a freelance indexer, copy-editor and proofreader. Paula is responsible for the VOSESA data management system and resource centre.