Nomyezo Mqhele is the African Environmental Defenders Emergency Fund Coordinator. Nomyezo is a multidisciplinary human rights lawyer and social justice advocate.
She joined Natural Justice in February 2024 as the African Environmental Defenders Initiative Fellow. She holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Pretoria.
Before joining Natural Justice, Nomyezo worked as a researcher at the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA), a pan African feminist organisation, where the thematic areas she focused on were violence against women, sexual and reproductive health rights and women’s land and socio- economic rights.
She contributed towards the Presidential Climate Commission as part of a Youth Perspective Cohort, speaking on the opportunities available for the youth in the Just Energy Transition (and green economy). She has also contributed to a number of legal and/ or human rights blogs including AfricLaw to highlight the socio-econo-environmental challenges that persist, and possible solutions, within the global community.
This builds on her experience as a policy maker/ influencer which began when she interned for the Speaker’s Office, in the Office on Institutions Supporting Democracy (OISD), providing procedural and legal support to South Africa’s Chapter 9 Institutions pursuant to advancing and strengthening South Africa’s Constitutional Democracy.
When not activisting- Nomyezo is a certified yoga instructor, an avid gardener/ plant muvva (mother) and bibliophile