12 Facts About Joyce Piliso-Seroke

Joyce Piliso-Seroke was born on 11 July 1933 and is a South-African educator, activist, feminist and community organizer.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke is a member of South Africa's national Order of the Baobab in Gold, and was appointed the first chair of the South African Commission for Gender Equality.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke's father was a mine supervisor and her mother was a primary school teacher, and for several years Piliso-Seroke's mother was her teacher at school.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke studied at the South African Native College at Fort Hare next, earning her University Education Diploma in 1956.

Soon, Joyce Piliso-Seroke was promoted to national secretary of YWCA, and she began travelling to international YWCA conferences to speak about her experiences with apartheid.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke was later detained again, held at the Old Fort Prison on Constitution Hill, Johannesburg.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke worked with other YWCA regions, joining with other groups and networks to coordinate campaigns such as the Women Against Oppression Campaign.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke's solution was to produce two documentaries with her friend Betty Wolpert, a South African filmmaker living in England, and these documentaries were subsequently shown abroad.

Between 1992 and 1993, Joyce Piliso-Seroke served on the Transvaal Board of the National Co-ordinating Council for Returnees, assisting efforts to help South African exiles return home.

In 1996, Joyce Piliso-Seroke joined the human rights committee of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, participating in public hearings that investigated human rights violations and supported victims.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke was a trustee for the Eskom Development Foundation.

In 2008, Joyce Piliso-Seroke was conferred to South Africa's national Order of the Baobab in Gold, for her contributions to "freedom, development, reconstruction and the struggle for gender equality" in South Africa.