CSPE- Staff

Executive Director: Barbara Michel

Admin, Finance and HR Manager: Rita Botha

Rita Botha is CSPE's financial officer. Under the supervision of Ms. Michel, they are responsible for $2 mil PEPFAR funds, which come in the form of subcontracts from Harvard and from Pact-SA and other USAID contractors for work with OVC.


Rita Botha is in charge of the financial management functions including development of monthly/quarterly financial statements, financial forecasts and budgets. She oversees and participates in general accounting functions, including account reconciliation and cash management. Rita also administers all financial management systems and evaluates and integrates new applications. She interacts with the Board of Directors concerning financial forecasts and reports and prepares the financials for audit.


During her time at CSPE she has developed:

1. HR structures as well as dealing with all payroll functions
2. Tender and budgetary protocols
3. Financial reporting and auditing structures

She has spent many years in the Corporate environment developing her skills in the fields of finance, office administration and human resources. She has been trained extensively in the fields of budgeting, preparation of financial statements, management reports and measuring of actual against budget, both in local and foreign currency.

Having a solid background in salary and HR administration, she takes care of the human resources aspect of the organization, including preparation and payment of salaries and administration of fringe benefits. Her qualifications are based upon a Certificate in Financial Management and 32 years of practical, hands-on experience, with a number of specialized short courses in order to enhance specific skills.

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Monitoring and Evaluation Activity Manager: Busisiwe Baloyi

Ms. Baloyi has been with CSPE since 2007 initially as a Peer Education Activity Manager. Her role has since developed into M&E Activity Manager, responsible for the development and implementation of CSPE's M&E system She has taken the lead in several critical CSPE initiatives, including the development of CSPE's M&E system and tools and the training to support it; and our new collaboration with the Gauteng Department of Health on peer education in clinics. She has been instrumental in setting up the M&E system especially testing and piloting of the recently finalized national database. Her work with Wazima is to develop and test tools and instruments in the field with selected partners has begun to raise the quality of data collected from peer education programs.

Her prior experience includes involvement in the development of various guidelines, including the Guidelines for Home and Community-Based Care, and the revision of the National TB Control Programme Guidelines, based on a TB control pilot programme she headed in the Eastern Cape. She has worked on a number of research projects on Community Development Work, one of which was published by the Health Systems Trust. She has an Honours degree in Psychology, and has been working in the HIV/AIDS sector for the last 8 years, initially as a Counselling Psychologist, doing pre- and post-test and ongoing counseling for HIV+ people.


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Activity Manager – Peer Education:Tanja Dodd

Tanja Dodd is an activity manager for the CSPE based in Kwa-Zulu Natal. She has a Masters in Development Studies and has been working in the field of sexual and reproductive health for the past 12 years in various roles.

Her initial experience was focused around conducting research and implementing research recommendations - her dissertation was based on research conducted in the Free State looking at community responses to the epidemic. She established and ran a HIV-specialised drop-in centre for students at the University of KwaZulu Natal and is currently busy with assisting partners either establish or strengthen peer education responses to HIV and other life skill challenges.

She has a certificate in HIV pre- and post-test counselling and has experience with providing psycho-social support to young people around the issue of VCT. She has a long-standing relationship with a Durban-based sports programme called PeacePlayers International. She has been a member of a national task-team on peer education and has presented reflections on her work in academic journals and at national and international conferences.

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Activity Manager - Communication and Research: Patrick Fish

Patrick Fish recently joined CSPE as their communications and research manager. Straight from working in the higher education sector, Patrick has many years of advocacy experience, specifically with the Department of Education. He has written extensively for academic fora, but has also been involved in website design and management as well as Communication strategies and research. He has a wide-ranging network across a variety of media, newspaper and educational genres.

Since 2000, he has also been involved in Communications for the higher education HIV and AIDS initiative which is currently running across South African universities. He brings a wealth of experience to CSPE and in so doing is able to provide expertise in conscientising the media to peer education issues and raising the profile of CSPE within our national and regional media. He has a Masters in English literature and has published in the areas of education and media.

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Activity Manager - Special Projects: Dikeledi Matji

Dikeledi Priscilla Matji, joined CSPE in 2008 as a Project Manager. She has a B.Tech degree in Community Health and Development, a post- graduate advanced diploma in Health Services Management, and a diploma in Community Nursing Science. She has obtained various certificates in HIV and AIDS and related courses including training, facilitation, program planning and monitoring and evaluation.

Dikeledi is a professional nurse and midwife, with more than 20 years nursing experience, working in a hospital, clinic, and mobile services in rural, disadvantaged areas. She established and managed sexuality and reproductive health services for adolescents, HIV/AIDS programs on peer education for in and out of school youth, traditional healers, traditional and community leaders and church leaders with a special focus on prevention, care and treatment support for people living with HIV and AIDS. She has vast training experience of health care professionals and community members at different levels on HIV/AIDS and Life Skills, gender and health, Home based care, VCT, PMTCT and ARVs.

She worked for the Department of Health for 21 years, as well as NGOs such as Planned Parenthood Association of SA (PPASA), Africare and Joint Aid Management (JAM). At JAM her area of expertise was giving technical support to the Health and Nutrition department in SA, Mozambique and Sudan as well as NGOs/CBOs involved in Home Based Care in SA. She is fluent in English, Sotho and Xhosa.


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Project Officer - Peer Education: Tholakele Zulu

Tholakele Zulu joined CSPE June 2008. She is a Project Officer in the KZN area dealing with OVC and school based PE. She speaks Zulu and English and previously worked for a South African NGO National Association for Child and Youth Care workers (NACCW). NACCW is an NGO working independently to promote optimal standards of care for orphaned, vulnerable and at-risk children, youth and their families. Her responsibilities included improving the quality of life for children and their families, particularly those affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty. She has also worked as a trainer and a mentor to Community Child and Youth Care Workers who worked directly with children and families at the site level.

Tholakele has lectured at the Durban University of Technology and as a VCT counsellor. Tholakele has a Bachelor's Degree Technology in Child and Youth Development and Honours Degree in Social Development.


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Activity Manager - OVC :Vhahangwele Manavhela

Hangwi joined CSPE in June 2008 as an Activity Manager for the OVC programme Vhutshilo. Here her main focus is on training supervisors and PEs as well as offering technical support to the OVC Vhutshilo sites.

Her past work experience has entailed working in the NGO sector within prevention, care and support programs. She has previously worked in the field of victim empowerment and supporting victims of social crime and as a Provincial Coordinator providing technical support for NGOs dealing with families infected and affected by HIV. During this period she worked extensively with the various government departments such as SAPS, Justice, National Prosecuting Authority and Health and Social Development. She qualified with Honours in Psychology at the University of Venda and is fluent in three languages.


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Project Officer - Peer Education : Thabile Shange

Thabile joined CSPE in March 2009 and is based at the KZN office. Before joining CSPE, she worked for the Catholic Institute Of Education (CIE) as a field worker. Her work focused on HIV/AIDS, Life skills and Gender issues in order to support all Catholic Schools in KZN. Within CIE she ran life skills workshops for teachers and helped them develop their school HIVAIDS policies. She also ran National Curriculum Statements workshop to help teachers align their lessons according to the requirements of Department of Education. We also ran HIV/AIDS information workshops for both teachers and learners.

Prior to working for CIE she worked for Sinosizo home based care; a NGO that worked with HIV infected and affected families. Her focus was on training volunteers and other organisations in home based care, basic counselling skills and directly observed treatment for TB (DOT), as well as providing psycho-social support to OVC. She has a B.Paed Degree from UKZN, Westville and a Bachelor of Education from University of KZN.


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Project Officer - OVC : Matlaleng Lithebe

Matlaleng Lithebe is originally from Lesotho and joined CSPE in 2009. She has an Honors degree in Social Work from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. She trained as a Play Therapist and is a registered Social worker. She has worked in various fields including Hospital Social work at the Albert Luthuli Hospital where she worked with young children in the Pediatric oncology, Surgery and the Hematology ward. She has also worked in a child welfare organization (Durban Children's Society) as well as with Heartbeat where she rendered psycho-social support services to OVC in two projects in the East Rand and two in the Free State.

She intends studying towards a Masters in Social Development next year.

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Project Officer - Peer Education: Theo Sesinyi

Theo Sesinyi is currently a Project Officer for CSPE based at our Johannesburg office. He has a diploma in Project Management and has been involved in implementing and coordinating youth and HIV and AIDS programmes in various communities for the last 8 years.

He is a skilled trainer and facilitator within the HIV and AIDS field and has contributed to piloting couple counseling and testing project for the CDC for all their Southern African partners, he has also worked on behalf of Johns Hopkins University within various workplaces. Mr. Sesinyi has extensive experience in working closely with various government departments, specifically the Departments of Health, Education and has implemented and managed HIV and AIDS programmes within the Department of Correctional Services. While a National VCT coordinator at one of the previous NGOs, he participated and contributed in some of the national VCT steering committee meetings that were held quarterly. He is currently studying towards a degree in community development.


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Project Officer - Peer Education :Elsa Chinembiri

Elsa Chinembiri recently joined CSPE as a Project Officer. She works with the workplace and faith-based organization partners. Elsa holds a Bsc. Honors degree in Natural Resources Management, her thesis focused on the social impacts of water poverty in the impoverished rural areas of Zimbabwe. She dealt extensively with the issue of HIV/AIDS - amongst other issues - within rural communities. She speaks fluent Ndebele, Shona , Zulu and English.

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Administration and Finance Officer: Hlamalani Rikhotso

Hlami Rikhotso has been working for CSPE since March 2007 as Finance and Administration Officer. She has over 10 years of experience in office administration and finance management. She had previously worked for organizations such as UNDP, IDEAA and NOVAFRICA etc. She completed her Higher Diploma in Education and has currently received her post-graduate Diploma in the management of HIV & AIDS at the Stellenbosch University. She works pro-actively in conjunction with Rita to ensure that goals and objectives of the center are accomplished. She also provides support to the CSPE team and plays a pivotal role within the team. Apart from English she is fluent in six African languages.


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