Staff

Helene Perold is the founder and executive director of VOSESA. Helene has worked in education, media and development for the past 35 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, India, Ireland, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, the USA and Zimbabwe. She serves as managing editor of Service Enquiry, a series that focuses on service and volunteering policy and programmes, with the aim of contributing to the impact of service on democracy, citizenship and socio-economic development.

Email: helene.perold@vosesa.org.za

Karena Cronin is the projects and outreach manager of VOSESA. She came to South Africa in 2007 through the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme and was placed at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. There she researched and co-authored a publication on volunteering and social activism, and advised the organisation on how to develop its work on volunteerism issues. Prior to this, she was a Council of Women World Leaders Fellow at the Club of Madrid in Spain and the Associate Director of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She holds a Master of International Affairs in Economic and Political Development from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Political Science from Union College (cum laude). She believes in the power of volunteering for personal as well as social transformation.

Email: Karena.cronin@vosesa.org.za

Benter Okello is the financial manager of VOSESA. She provides financial management and strategic support to VOSESA. 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 Böll Foundation, and managed a book publishing project on ICT for development, funded by OSISA. She has also worked part-time as an events organiser for the South African Council of Churches and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Email: bokello@hpa.org.za

Jacob Mati is the research manager of VOSESA.  Before joining VOSESA, Jacob was a freelance consultant and had just completed a research consultancy with the Office of the Executive Coordinator of United Nations Volunteers in the production of the first State of the World Volunteering Report. Prior to this he worked for the CIVICUS Civil Society Index for five years, during which he held a position of senior research officer. He has previously worked with/consulted for various civil society organizations and academic institutions in Kenya, India, South Africa and the USA in the areas of research, development planning and management, policy analysis and advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, and organizational development. Jacob is a Board Member of the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) and represents the civil society constituency in the Global Reporting Initiative’s Stakeholder Council. He serves on the Editorial Board of Kenyan Affairs and is currently a doctoral fellow at the Humanities Graduate Centre of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where he is finalising his PhD dissertation in Sociology.

Email: Jacob.mati@vosesa.org.za

Eddy Mazembo Mavungu is a research associate of VOSESA and served as VOSESA’s research manager for the first half of 2011. He currently holds a post-doctoral research fellowship with the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg. Eddy is a doctoral candidate in the humanities faculty at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and has submitted his PhD thesis entitled “Frontiers of prosperity and power: explaining provincial boundary disputes in post-apartheid South Africa”. He received his Master’s degree in Political Studies from the same university for his work on “Social capital, economic performance and political engagement: A study of Congolese networks in Central Johannesburg”. Eddy has also studied conflict and peace research methodologies through the University of Peace and IDRC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Eddy hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo where he obtained his BA Hons degree (summa cum laude) from the Jesuit Institute of Philosophy in Kimwenza (Kinshasa).

Lauren Graham is a research associate of VOSESA. She previously worked as VOSESA’s research manager, but opted to change her affiliation with the organisation in order to pursue her PhD on youth identity and risk at the University of Johannesburg. She has a Masters degree in Development Sociology (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand. Previously she worked at the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE) as a researcher and was a research intern at the University of Witwatersrand’s Sociology of Work Programme (SWOP). She is passionate about good research that can be applied for the development of people in society. Her continued involvement in VOSESA’s research programmes enables her to use her research skills in the service of promoting and supporting volunteering efforts in the SADC region.

Learnmore Muchemwa joined VOSESA as a research intern in September 2010 after working for the organisation on a part-time basis. He has also worked for Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company (ZEDC) and the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture in Zimbabwe as an educator. He holds a B.Com (Hons) degree in Banking. He is currently working towards the completion of his Masters’ degree in Economic Development and Policy Issues at the University of Johannesburg. His major areas of interest include development finance and local economic development.  

Email: research@vosesa.org.za

Kenneth Dickhudt joined VOSESA as a research intern in June 2011 and is currently pursuing a Master of International Relations at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from The Evergreen State College. Previously, he worked in the Office of International Affairs at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in Washington, DC, where his work primarily focused on research of global financial regulatory policy. He is interested in the relationship between community activism and economic development.

Email: intern@vosesa.org.za

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