Management Team

 

Amanda Dissel: Criminal Justice Programme

Amanda Dissel is Programme Manager of the Criminal Justice Programme. She holds a BA LLB from the University of the Witwatersrand. She is an admitted attorney, who practiced in criminal law, human rights and matrimonial law prior to joining the CSVR in 1994. Her areas of speciality within the criminal justice field are penal policy, juvenile justice, sentencing and human rights. She has published research on prisons and correctional services, and on conditions of detention in police custody. She managed a human rights training project for prisoners and correctional officials, and she has also trained members of the Independent Judicial Inspectorate for Prisons, and Independent Prison Visitors. She was the recipient of the Rockefeller Resident Fellowship (1997) at the Centre for the Study of Violence in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She has done international consultancy work with the Kenya police, and has worked for several NGOs internationally and in South Africa. Amanda is currently working on a project to make integrated services available to young offenders in prison.

adissel@csvr.org.za

 

Angelica Pino Davis: Gender Programme

apinodavis@csvr.org.za

 

Anu Pillay: Gender Programme

Anu Pillay's passion and motivation for her work is spurred by her personal experience of surviving violence, raising four children as a single parent, engaging in the struggle to end apartheid and educating herself. She began her professional life in 1981 when she started the first non-racial pre-school in the Eastern Cape. Her work over the past 25 years has focused on women, gender and development although life has taken her on many different career paths. She has experienced working in the private sector, the public sector and the development sector. She expanded her work to include conflict transformation and peace, with a sharp focus on women and gender. Anu has a well developed profile in the development sector of South Africa for her work on social entrepreneurship in an international non-governmental organisation. She is more well known, however, for her work with violence against women and is the co-founder and board member of Masimanyane Women's Support Centre and Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy to End Violence Against Women (VAW). She has published many papers and articles on peace and VAW and contributed to and co-edited a book on conflict: The Aftermath: Women in Post-Conflict Transformation published by Zed Books, London, which focuses on women and conflict in Africa.
See also her paper on gender, peace and peacekeeping at http://www.iss.org.za Occasional Paper series No. 128

apillay@csvr.org.za

 

Dorothy Khosa: Youth Programme

Dorothy is Manager of the CSVR Youth Programme. Since 1994 she has initiated and established sustainable violence reduction programmes in township schools. This entails training, facilitation, mobilisation and other basic community development strategies. She has developed programmes and established structures that serve as ideal models for youth in a transitional period. She is a Social Worker, holds an Honours degree in Psychology, and a Masters in Philosophy that focussed on Adolescent Guidance.

dkhosa@csvr.org.za

 

Hugo van der Merwe: Transitional Justice Programme

Hugo is the Programme Manager of the Transitional Justice Programme at the Centre for the Study of Violence where he has worked since 1998. Hugo currently manages the CSVR's Cape Town office. He specialises in research design and management, and his research interests are violence, conflict resolution and reconciliation. He has developed and managed numerous research projects evaluating the work and impact of the TRC and examining reconciliation programmes in South Africa. These projects have looked at issues such as the psychological impact of the TRC, the impact of the TRC on community reconciliation, assessing institutional transformation, evaluating community reconciliation programmes, and looking at the comparative lessons of the TRC.

Hugo received his doctorate in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University (Virginia, USA), and a BSc from the University of Cape Town (majoring in Statistics and Sociology). Hugo was previously employed as Research Coordinator at the Community Dispute Resolution Trust (1993-97) where he was responsible for programme evaluation, policy development and advocacy in relation to issues of community justice, family mediation and restorative justice. He has also held research positions at the Centre for Conflict Resolution (Cape Town), Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (USA) and the National Institute for Dispute Resolution (USA).

He is the co-editor of Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice (Manchester University Press, 1993), and has authored various papers, chapters and articles on community justice, family mediation, restorative justice, reconciliation and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He has been invited to present papers on his TRC work at numerous international conferences, workshops and official briefings. He has served as Vice President of the South African Association of Conflict Intervention (1995-97) and as Deputy Chair of the South African Association of Mediators in Family and Divorce Matters (1994-6). He received a United States Institute of Peace Fellowship to complete the research for his doctorate (1997-1998). Hugo is based in CSVR's Cape Town office.

hvdmerwe@csvr.org.za

 

Nomfundo Mogapi: Trauma and Transition Programme

nmogapi@csvr.org.za

 

Shamila Singh: Administration and Human Resources

Shamila Singh has a Masters in Business Leadership (2004) and an Honours Degree in Industrial Psychology from the University of South Africa (2001). She has completed a qualification in labour law and labour relations (Unisa, 2006). She also completed a management programme through Henley College (UK) in 1996 and a full accounting certificate (UNISA, 1995) and is a practicing psychometrist.

She is presently employed as the Shared Services Manager at the CSVR and oversees the administration, human resources and IT functions of the organisation. Shamila has 13 years experience in the design, evaluation and implementation of management, HR and administration systems and extensive experience over the past six years in the strategic financial management of CSVR.

She has more than seven years experience in human resources management - strong experience in developing skills development strategies and drives and oversees the implementation of CSVR's employment equity and diversity management strategies. Shamila has played an instrumental role in designing the change management and management alignment processes in the organization over the past two years. She has more than nine years management and leadership experience of which the last seven years have been in the Non Profit Sector.

ssingh@csvr.org.za