Wandisa Phama is a human rights lawyer and social justice activists. She is the Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Rights. She holds an LLB and LLM in Social Justice from the University of Cape Town. With over a decade of work holding various roles in the Public Interest Law and Social Justice Sector in South Africa, her work has included litigating for the inclusion of community voices in the formulation of the South African Mining Charter, the protection of the right to social security, holding financial institutions accountable for their role in human rights abuses in projects they finance and defending activists from victimisation and intimidation by the state and private actors.
As a legal practitioner who loves teaching, Wandisa also taught various courses at the Wits Law School, including postgraduate courses in Law and Sustainability, Human Rights and the Marketplace, and an undergraduate course in Environmental Law. Wandisa believes in using human rights-based solutions to challenge social inequality and to advance social justice struggles. She is committed to leadership development and the transformation of the legal profession. She is passionate about creating resilient social justice institutions that value health and well-being in the manner they go about doing their work.
Wandisa currently serves on the Board of Ndifuna’Ukwazi and its litigation committee as well as the Risk Committee of the Centre for Environmental Rights.
