Governance

SAHA is a registered Non-Profit Trust (registration no. 2522/93) in terms of section 6(1) of the Trust Property Control Act (No. 57 of 1988). As such, SAHA is governed by a board of trustees.

SAHA is also registered as a Non-Profit Organisation (registration no.: 031-807-NPO) in terms of the Non-Profit Organisation Act (No. 71 of 1997), and a Public Benefit Organisation (registration no. 130002891) in terms of section 10(1)(cN) of the Income Tax Act (No. 58 of 1962.)

SAHA Current Board of Trustees

Advocate Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza (Chairperson)

Advocate Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza, LLB, BProc, BA, LLM (International Law) completed his studies for a law degree while serving a prison term for political activism in the mid-70s. He was admitted as an attorney in 1984 and practiced in the Eastern Cape, mainly in the area of human rights. He represented a number of political prisoners throughout the 80s and early 90s. In 1995 he served as a commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While still an attorney, he was appointed acting judge of the High Court of South Africa. In March 2000, he entered the bar and took chambers as a member of the Cape Bar. Advocate Ntsebeza served as president of South Africa's Black Lawyers Association. He is also a founder of the South African National Association of Democratic Lawyers and served as its President. He has chaired numerous boards, including Barloworld Limited and Avusa. 

Dumisa has served as a SAHA board member since 2003.

Ms Florencia Belvedere

Currently based at Lawyers for Human Rights, Florencia is a researcher and activist with a focus on socio-economic rights, social justice and the politics of refugees and migrants. She is from Argentina, has a PhD in politics from the University of Minnesota (US), an LLB from UNISA, and has lived in South Africa for the past twenty years. During this time, she has worked for CASE, a South African social research NGO, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Department of Home Affairs.

Florencia has served as a SAHA board member since 2016.

Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi

Mbongiseni is currently a research manager at the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI). He holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, New York, where he also obtained a Master of Philosophy in English and Comparative Literature. A dedicated scholar, he graduated cum laude from both the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Natal, earning a Master of Arts in English Studies and Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in English and Drama, respectively. Working in various academic and activist capacities, Mbongiseni has been interested in how the state interfaces with citizens in areas that include land restitution, the role of traditional leaders in governance, heritage and public archives. With various collaborators he has researched and written on the state's constructions of the identities of citizens in KwaZulu-Natal through heritage discourse and commemorative events. He has also written on land and citizenship rights in rural areas and the role of traditional leaders in the realisation of these rights, as well as the dire state of public archives and its implications for accountable government.

Mbongiseni has served as a SAHA board member since 2016.

Professor Noor Nieftagodien

Currently employed by the University of the Witwatersrand, Professor Nieftagodien is the NRF Chair: Local Histories, Present Realities, and current head of the History Workshop. With Philip Bonner, Nieftagodien is the co-author of two books, Kathorus: A History (2001) and Alexandra: A History (2008). In addition to these books, he has authored and co-authored many articles and more than ten book chapters on diverse facets of the history of apartheid in South Africa.

Noor has served as a SAHA board member since 2007.

Mr Piers Pigou

Currently employed as the Southern Africa Project Director of the International Crisis Group, Piers Pigou is a former member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Investigation Unit. A former director of SAHA, he has also worked for a number of organisations focussing on transitional justice both nationally and regionally, including the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) and the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). He currently serves on the board of the Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA) and the Visual History Archive (VHA).

Piers has served as a SAHA board member since 2009

Ms Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh

Kaajal has been the executive director of the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC) since February 2015. She obtained her B.Proc LLB degrees from the University of Natal (now University of KwaZulu-Natal). She was employed at Lawyers for Human Rights from 2002- 2014 where she initially headed the Immigration Detention Monitoring Unit and was thereafter appointed as Manager of the Refugee and Migrants Rights Programme, which position she held from 2007- 2014. She was the board chairperson of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa from 2007-2011.  She was the Southern African regional representative for the International Detention Coalition (IDC) and sat on the IDC’s Advisory Panel from 2008- 2014. She is a founding member of the secretariat of the African NGO Taskforce which is a network of organisations working on refugee protection in Africa. The Taskforce has been working on actively capacitating local NGOs on aspects of refugee protection. She has significant experience and expertise in the fields of asylum, migration, refugee protection, citizenship and statelessness. Kaajal was previously employed at the International Organization for Migration.

Kaajal has served as a SAHA board member since 2016.

Professor Ciraj Rassool

Currently employed by the University of the Western Cape, Professor Rassool directs UWC’s African Programme in Museum and Heritage Studies, managed in partnership with Robben Island Museum. He is a trustee of the District Six Museum and a councillor of Iziko Museums of Cape Town and previously served on the councils of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) and the National Heritage Council. He has been a member of the Archaeology, Palaeontology, Meteorites, Heritage Objects and Burial Sites Permit Committee of South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), and also serves on its Artworks Advisory Panel. Most recently he was appointed to the Human Remains Repatriation Advisory Committee of the Department of Arts and Culture. He has written widely on public history, visual history and resistance historiography and has published in the Journal of African History, the Journal of Southern African Studies, Cahiers d’etudes Africaines, African Studies, South African Review of Sociology and Kronos: Southern African Histories

Ciraj has served as a SAHA board member since 2003

SAHA PATRONS

Ms Luli Callinicos

Veteran activist and social historian, Ms Callinicos was a founding member of the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Workers’ Library in Johannesburg. Author of the three-volume People’s History of South Africa, as well as The World that made Mandela, Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engele Mountains and Who Built Jozi? Discovering memory at Wits Junction, in 1994, she was appointed to the Arts and Culture Task Group (ACTAG), mandated to reconfigure the arts and culture landscape to redress past imbalances and reflect an inclusive democratic South Africa. To that end, she assisted in conceptualising and identifying legacy projects for the Department of Arts and Culture. She served as the Chairperson of the National Heritage Council, was a founding Trustee forFreedom Park, a Council member of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) and served on the Education Ministerial History Committee. Currently she is a council member of the Robben Island Museum and a board member of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.

Luli served as a board member of SAHA from 1993- 2016.

Ms Marlene Powell

Marlene Powell is currently employed as the Knowledge and Network Manager at theGraduate School of Development Policy and Practice at the University of Cape Town.  She was one of the founder members of SAHA in 1988 and a member of the Posterbook Collective that produced the Ravan Press / SAHA publication ‘Images of Defiance; Resistance Posters of the 1980s’. She has worked extensively as an internet, media and communications consultant, including for the WHO, ITU and Council for Science and Technology in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and as head of the Media Department at COSATU's National Head Office. 

Marlene served as a board member of SAHA from 1996-2016.

Ms Razia Saleh

Currently employed as the Senior Archivist at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Razia Saleh was the SAHA archivist from 1989 – 2000 and was the ANC Archives Unit Coordinator from 2001 – 2006. She currently serves on the board of the  Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, and co-edited their 2009 book Men of Dynamite: Pen Portraits of MK Pioneers.

Razia served as a board member of SAHA from 2003- 2016.

Mr Horst Kleinschmidt

Horst Kleinschmidt was Vice President of the National Union of South African Students in 1970. Political work denied him a post as teacher. He worked for Ds. Beyers Naudé in the Christian Institute. He was detained in 1975 and fled the country in 1976. In exile, he was Director of the London-based International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) that paid for the legal representation for thousands of apartheid opponents standing trial or detained without trial. On returning from exile, he served as Director of the development organisations Kagiso Trustand then Mvula Trust. From 2000 to 2005 he served as head of the Fisheries branch of Government. He writes on social justice and history issues and remains a social activist, serving on numerous boards, including the Claude Leon Foundation, the African Oceans Conservation Alliance and the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute.

Horst has served as a SAHA board from 1993-2016.