our people
Our organisation is run by our support team, campaigns and projects team, and is supported by a management committee (board), and adhoc interns and volunteers.
We are grateful to our 20 or so members, individuals who strongly support our work and whom we have invited to join our voluntary association.
OUR TEAM
Support
David Le Page
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David is the co-founder and director of Fossil Free South Africa, a leading campaign based in Cape Town advocating for fossil fuel divestment and sustainable reinvestment in South Africa.
After an initial career as a copywriter and theatre critic, he became an environment and human rights journalist and campaigner working for the Mail & Guardian, Treatment Action Campaign and Southern African Faith Communities Environment Initiative.
Under his leadership, Fossil Free South Africa has successfully pressured institutions like the University of Cape Town to divest from fossil fuels and continues to engage other universities and institutions to promote truly sustainable moves towards a thriving, inclusive and climate-resilient South Africa.
Beyond fighting fossil fuels, he is obsessed with cultural and economic “fossils” – such the concepts of economic growth and austerity – that impoverish us more than they enrich us; and chases a new Parkrun PB whenever his three small boys permit.
Tracy Caderberg
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Tracy is an experienced financial manager and administrator who has dedicated her career since 1999 to serving the NGO/NPO community. Past experience includes Edu-Peg, Children’s Resource Centre, Abalimi Bezekhaya and Harvest of Hope. She has a passion for justice and helping people realise their worth, value and purpose.
Outside of FFSA, Tracy has established a healing circle for women from all walks of life and regularly meets with the group to support them.
Eugene Fisher
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Eugene is a human rights activist with an extensive volunteering background, having worked with Harvest of Hope and the Children’s Resource Centre.
He is a skilled administrator with multiple certifications from institutions like the University of California, Irvine. He is an avid supporter of buying and sourcing goods and food that are produced locally and ethically, an outdoor enthusiast, and someone who loves being a tourist in his hometown of Cape Town.
Emma Fookwe
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Emma, a Stellenbosch University graduate, is a trained social worker with further certifications in marketing, digital content, and copywriting from UCT and Red & Yellow School of Business.
With a passion for human rights and intersectionality, she serves on our support team, assisting with internal team building, organisational development and general operations. In addition to this, she manages all our events planning, stewards our community and manages our social media platforms.
Beyond working with Fossil Free SA, she volunteers her time with a NPO that aims at connecting and building communities between young women globally, enjoys spinning classes, and walks in nature with her dogs.
megan smeda
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Megan started her journey as an intern in 2024 with FFSA. She is thrilled to contribute her skills and experience in administrative work and non-profit fundraising, as well as her growing passion for climate advocacy, to Fossil Free South Africa's mission driven work.
Her journey with FFSA thus far has been filled with both personal and professional development, allowing her to grow into an informed, resourceful advocate. The best change has been how significantly her bookshelves have altered the more involved she becomes in the climate space.
fossil ad ban
bathandwa xhallie
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Bathandwa is a South African attorney specialising in public-interest law, legal research, policy analysis and regulatory advocacy. She serves as Litigation & Regulatory Lead at Fossil Free South Africa, supporting the Fossil Ad Ban Campaign through legal and regulatory research, strategic litigation, legislative advocacy and engagement with regulatory institutions.
Her work focuses on the intersection of law, policy, parliamentary processes and corporate accountability, with a particular interest in strengthening regulatory frameworks and advancing effective legal mechanisms for public accountability. Drawing on her experience in civil society, legal advocacy and policy engagement, Bathandwa is committed to making legal and regulatory systems more accessible, transparent and responsive to the public interest.
Kholwani simelane
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Kholwani is a youth, environmental and social justice organiser, campaigner, and advocate committed to advancing a just and equitable energy transition in South Africa and across Africa. He serves as our Campaign Coordinator and team lead for the Fossil Ad Ban campaign, where he coordinates campaign strategy, partnerships and collective action to challenge fossil fuel advertising, sponsorship and the normalisation of the fossil fuel industry.
Kholwani has extensive experience in climate campaigning, community mobilisation, advocacy and coalition building through his work in the Climate and Social Justice space. His work centres on strengthening community power, challenging fossil fuel expansion and ensuring that communities are at the heart of decisions shaping a just, sustainable and fossil-free future. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with my friends and family.
zandile bangani
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Zandile completed her Bachelor of Arts, Honours and Master of Arts at the University of the Western Cape, where she specialised in Linguistics, Language and Communication.
She has experience in media research and freelance writing for the Media and Communications office at UWC. She also worked as an education journalist for New Frame, and a Media and Communications contract specialist for RISE Mzansi. She joins the team as Fossil Ad Ban’s communication officer, overseeing their social media, events and all communications.
mobilising universities &
finance advocacy
Sam bovim
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Sam studied a Bachelor of Business Science at UCT, in Economics and Law. He is passionate about just and equitable change and the power of the individual to drive this change. He will primarily be working on the Future We Want campaign, engaging with asset managers, pension fund consultants and university investment committees to encourage climate-friendly investment.
Outside of work, he loves to run (trail and road), to sing, and play ultimate frisbee.
stephanie cookson
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Steph has her masters in Climate Change and Sustainable Development, with an undergraduate in social science. Her research focuses on climate science communication and policy, and she has a passion for social impact, connecting the right people to the right information, and inspiring people to remake the world differently.
Steph is one of our campaigners that works on our "Mobilising universities for climate leadership" and "Financial advocacy" campaigns. She is also a Climate Reality Project Leadership Corps graduate and mentor.
After work, if she's not playing video games, you can find her behind her sewing machine with paleoarchaeology documentaries playing in the background.
communications
Jo-anne smetherham
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Jo is an award-winning journalist and PR practitioner with 25 years’ experience and a passion for telling stories of those working to create a more humane and sustainable world. She is a Bachelor of Arts graduate from the University of Cape Town and a Journalism Honours graduate from Stellenbosch university.
She divides her time as a communications strategist and writer for Seed Communications.
For FFSA, she specialises in communications strategies and implementation across forums. She focuses on our external media relations and leads our communications team.
zandile bangani
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Zandile also serves on our wider communications team to ensure that we have consistent messaging and align our communications strategies.
Emma Fookwe
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Emma also serves on our Communications team in the role of social media manager and content creator across our various platforms, website manager and merchandise manufacturer.
Climate media lab
Ozayr patel
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Ozayr holds Honours and Master’s degrees in Journalism and Media Studies. He is a communications and media associate with experience as an editor and journalist, working across content creation, media strategy, editing and storytelling. In his spare time, Ozayr enjoys engaging in sport, whether it's watching or playing.
Dr enoch sithole
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Dr Enock Sithole is the executive director of the Institute for Climate Change Communication (ICCC). He publishes Climate Current, a weekly climate change online newsletter. The ICCC works to raise awareness about climate change through research and training of climate activists, journalists and communication professionals.
Dr Sithole is a former journalism lecturer at the Wits Centre for Journalism, University of the Witwatersrand. He previously worked as a journalist and executive in several institutions, including the New Nation newspaper, the South
African Broadcasting Corporation and the Constitutional Assembly. He holds a PhD in climate change communication. He researches on diverse areas of climate change, including policy, adaptation, journalism and communication as well as community radio.
He has addressed various conferences and written for various news media on climate change-related issues.
Jo-anne smetherham
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Jo was part of the conceptualisation of this programme. She helps coordinate the programme, stakeholders, mentors, and fellows.
Sheree bega
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Sheree Bega is a seasoned journalist with 26 years of experience. She joined the Mail & Guardian in October 2020 as an environment reporter, where she specialises in covering environmental issues including the climate crisis, water scarcity, pollution, waste management and biodiversity, with a focus on in-depth reporting that highlights South Africa’s environmental challenges.
Before this, she spent 15 years at the Saturday Star as news editor and senior reporter, much of it covering environmental stories, and has also worked at ThisDay, The Star, Business Report and the Mail & Guardian. She has received multiple national and regional awards for environmental journalism, including Vodacom Journalist of the Year honours, SAB Environmental Journalist of the Year awards and SANParks Kudu Awards recognition between 2011 and 2019.
Marcia monyane
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Marcia Moyana is an award-winning freelance journalist from South Africa. She holds a Bachelors Degree in Journalism from the Tshwane University of Technology and is currently enrolled for an MA Degree in Journalism at the Stellenbosch University. Marcia is currently an associate at Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism unit and also works as a freelancer who specialises in health, science and climate change.
She started working as a freelancer in 2018 and so far she has written for publications like Health-e News, the Mail & Guardian, Alliance for Science, Global Health Now, Dialogue Earth, Wits Curiosity Magazine and Lesotho publication, Newsday.
Marcia is one of about 60 global fellows in the 2025 Reporting on Rare Diseases fellowship under the National Press Foundation, one of 10 grant winners of the 2024 Reporting on Climate Change in Africa grant supported by the Wits Centre for Journalism and Dialogue Earth, one of 40 African health and science journalists who were part of the 2023 inaugural Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA) Journalism fellowship. She was one of four African journalists who were selected by the African Development Bank to report on the COP28 conference for Climate Change in Dubai. She was in the 2022 Early Childhood Development Global Reporting fellowship program from the Dart Center for Journalism. She is also an alumni of the 2021 fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Gender Justice Reporting Initiative.
Climate hope
Jo-anne smetherham
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Jo also co-leads our Climate Hope campaign, from research and copywriting/editing, to campaign-specific communications.
Emma Fookwe
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Emma manages the social media-related content, communications and website pages for our Climate Hope campaign.
stephanie cookson
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Steph conceptualised the Climate Hope campaign, which launched mid-2025. She is involved in the research, copywriting and editing, and assists with the campaign-related communications and social media.
RESEARCH
AMANDA MOKOENA
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Amanda is our part-time contracted researcher commissioning a report on the full costs – human and economic – of our current fossil fuel dependence for South Africa, and examining pathways for eliminating dependence. She is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, studying water infrastructure in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. With a background in Environmental and Geographical Science, and International Relation, she holds an MPhil in African Studies which examined the inequalities deepened by the City of Cape Town’s response to the 2015-2018 Day Zero water crisis.
Raised on the foothills of the Drakensberg in QwaQwa in the Free State, she is a keen mountaineer and when she’s not dodging bikes in flat Amsterdam, she’s in a valley somewhere in the Kingdom in the Sky - Lesotho.
O’SHEA ROOPNARIAN
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O’shea is our part-time contracted researcher commissioning a report on an indicative overview of full future economic costs of climate change for South Africa. He is a a Climate Risk Specialist and PhD Candidate at the Durban University of Technology, whose research and background sits at the intersection of Policy Development, Impact Investment, Adaptation and Quality Systems.
MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
OUR BOARD
nicola wills
Chair
Nicola is an energy economist doing her PhD at UCT. She volunteered for our ManCo in March 2024 and became our chair in June 2024.
jigisha mandalia
Secretary
Jigisha supported our Fossil Free UCT campaign as a student activist in the Green Campus Initiative and now works for a renewable energy company.
dean bhebhe
Member
Dean is a climate activist with Power Shift Africa and former consultant to our Fossil Ad Ban campaign, who joined our ManCo team in early 2024.
mark new
Member
Professor Mark New is a climate scientist and former head of UCT’s African Climate and Development Initiative who volunteered for our ManCo in early 2024.
Saarah hendricks
Saarah holds a BA in Multimedia Production and an Honours degree in Media Theory and Practice from the University of Cape Town. Her academic research explored how fast-fashion brands navigate—and too often exploit—sustainability narratives through greenwashing tactics. Saarah joined the ManCo in December 2025.
Member
ashley reynolds
Member
Ashley utilises her specialisation in marketing and communications to advance impact, sustainability, and the Blue Economy. Her work spans climate finance, sustainable investment, governance, and policy, focusing on strategic communications and ecosystems building across Africa. Ashley joined the ManCo in December 2025.
Michael Marchant
Michael is the Head of Investigations Unit at Open Secrets, a non-profit based in Cape Town. There, he leads a team of investigators working to uncover the role of powerful private actors in corruption, economic crimes, and illicit financial flows. He joined the ManCo in November 2025
Member