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Acting Director and Deputy Director appointed at CALS

- Lee-Anne Bruce

CALS is very pleased to announce that Ms Busisiwe Kamolane-Kgadima and Ms Sithuthukile Mkhize have been appointed as Acting Director and Acting Deputy Director

CALS is proud to report that Busisiwe Kamolane-Kgadima today takes on the role of Acting Director at our organisation. Busisiwe is expected to occupy the position over the next few months as the Wits Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management begins the recruitment process for a permanent Director. We are confident that she will lead our organisation with dedication, skill and passion.

Busisiwe was recently appointed as Deputy Director at CALS by a panel of interviewers at the Wits School of Law. She first joined CALS in 2019. In 2021, she inaugurated and led the Research and Advocacy Unit at CALS. Under her leadership, the unit has not only created a sustainable theory of change for research and advocacy at CALS but it has also contributed significantly to expanding CALS’ expertise and research outputs. This has bolstered CALS’ positioning as one of the leaders in impact research and innovative advocacy work.

Busisiwe has led much of our work on protecting human rights defenders, hosting our first Activist Symposium and Anti-Repression Week, as well as co-ordinating our second edition report on Victimisation Experiences of Activists in South Africa, recommending law against SLAPP suits in South Africa and producing a first activist toolkit. She also leads our flagship project on growing the social justice sector, the Public Interest Law Moot Court Competition. Busisiwe holds an LLM from the Wits University with a thesis entitled, ‘But some are more equal than others: The role of equality rights in the eradication of poverty discrimination in South Africa’.

As Busisiwe steps into the role of Acting Director, Sithuthukile Mkhize has been appointed as Acting Deputy Director. Sithuthukile first joined CALS in 2018 as a senior attorney in what was then the Basic Services programme. She currently heads the Civil & Political Justice programme, where her practice involves protecting rights such as the right to protest, freedom of expression, access to information and the rights of arrested and detained persons. She has been involved in ground-breaking Constitutional Court cases that have contributed towards law reform in various areas. The title of her mini dissertation was ‘A Constitutional Approach to Spatial Justice in South Africa: Informal Trading and the Right to the City’.

"As CALS enters this transitional period, it presents an exciting opportunity to propel the organisation to further heights. As the first all-Black female management team in the 46 years of CALS’ existence, we know we stand on the shoulders of giants such as Prof Tshepo Madlingozi and Ms Palesa Madi who have previously led CALS with vigour and excellence,” says Busisiwe Kamolane-Kgadima.

We welcome the acting appointments of two brilliant members of our staff to management positions in the organisation and look forward to continuing our work together.

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