Khulisa Management Services

Dr. Aiello is a seasoned educator who has worked in the education and social sectors for over twenty-five years, both in Southern Africa and the United States. She has extensive experience in education, human resources and labour, as well as broad expertise in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) having conducted research and taught assessment courses as an adjunct professor at George Mason University in Virginia in the United States. Some of her past work includes being country programme director for the Reducing Exploitive Child Labour in Southern Africa (RECLISA) project, which involved implementing activities in South Africa and overseeing monitoring and evaluation work in five countries:  Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and South Africa. Other past work has included a partnership with Fafo of Norway in conducting verification studies of certification surveys by the governments of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire for the International Cocoa Verification Board (ICVB).  She has also led a research team to conduct Partner Performance and Social Impact Assessments for a sample of Corporate Social Investment partners and projects in six African countries:  Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa for The Cocoa-Cola Africa Foundation (TCCAF).

Ms. Hirschfeld is an educator by training who has worked in the field of community development for the past 16 years. Since 2003, she has been actively involved in child labour matters, including assisting the South African Department of Labour with the drafting of a National Child Labour Action Programme on the elimination of child labour and working with the International Labour Organization as Programme Coordinator for the regional programme Towards the Elimination of worst forms of Child Labour (TECL). She holds a BA (Hons), 1991 (Cum Laude) and HED, 1990 (Cum Laude) from the Potchefstoom University for Higher Education (North West University).

Ms. Pursell has been working in the social development field for the past nine years. Her work areas include: orphans & vulnerable children (OVC); forced migration and prevention of trafficking; child labour; vulnerable populations affected by HIV/AIDS; data quality assessment; and the monitoring and evaluation of development programmes. She joined Khulisa in January 2006 to work on the Reducing Exploitive Child Labour in Southern Africa (RECLISA) project, and led RECLISA work in communities in Gauteng and Mpumalanga. In 2008 she co-ordinated the USAID funded Community Mitigating Against Trafficking (CMAT) project, which aimed to increase knowledge and strengthen services for children at risk of trafficking in the inner city of Johannesburg. She has done extensive work with OVC, both in developing and providing psycho-social support services, and more recently in completing three best practice case studies of PEPFAR funded OVC programmes in South Africa. In 2009 she co-ordinated social impact and partner performance assessments of Coca-Cola Africa corporate social investment funded projects in seven countries across Africa, and undertook assessments in Egypt and Ghana. The assessments focussed on health, education, entrepreneurship and water stewardship projects being funded by the Foundation. Rebecca has a BA (Hons) in Social Work (2000), a Masters of Arts in Forced Migration (2006) and a Masters in Public Health (2007). She is currently providing technical assistance to Habitat for Humanity International’s OVC programmes in Africa and is an active member of the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association. Ms Pursell has recently participated in the Baseline Study for the Care and Support for Teaching and Learning Initiative to be implemented in 5 SADC countries by MIET Africa, in cooperation with UNICEF and UNESCO.