Vanessa Pillay

Vanessa spent most of her adult working life serving the South African labour movement, first as a shop steward in a white-collar union and then as a worker educator. She joined the DITSELA Workers Education Institute early in 2000 where she worked until mid-2011, working across different sectors, unions and federations and in the region. Her areas of focus in workers’ education have been women’s leadership development and organisational development in a trade union context. She is especially interested in the application or ‘plough back’ of learning to build democratic working class organisations. Before joining WIEGO, Vanessa was the Director of a vocational skills training centre for disadvantaged youth. In addition to her management responsibilities at St.Anthony’s Education Centre, she facilitated life skills programmes for the unemployed youth. She holds a MPhil degree in Adult Education from the University of Cape Town. At WIEGO she serves as Programme Officer: Organization and Representation in Africa. Her responsibilities include supporting the strengthening of organization and representation of Membership-Based Organizations (MBOs) of domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers.