Who We Are

Small Enterprise Foundation

The IMAGE programme is a sub-component of The Small Enterprise Foundation, and is therefore governed by the SEF Board of directors, and falls under the management of SEF’s Research and Development Department. See below SEF’s annual report.

IMAGE Advisory Board

THE IMAGE Programme also reports to the IMAGE Advisory Board. This Board constitutes the following:

John De Wit

John is the co-founder and Managing Director of The Small Enterprise Foundation. After spending four years running the microcredit operations of the Get Ahead Foundation, from 1987 to 1990, John decided to launch his own organization in one of the poorest provinces of South Africa. He was convinced that the solution for the poverty in his country would be found through one of two methods for increasing income – mainstream employment or small enterprise development. John decided to tackle the latter as he believed that if he helped people to start businesses, they will in turn be able to create jobs for others. As he developed his model, John drew lessons from the Grameen Bank and tailor-made it for the South African context.

John holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cape Town and has served as a member of the Policy Advisory Group of CGAP, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest, as a trustee of ChoiCe, a South African health sector NGO which focuses on home-based care for people living with HIV/AIDS and TB and as a board member of the Association of Pro-Poor Microfinance Institutions of South Africa.

John is an Ashoka Fellow. In 2012 he received The International Alliance for Women World of Difference 100 Award in the category Champion of Women’s Economic Empowerment. He has presented lectures at the University of California, San Diego and Point Loma Nazarene University, and has chaired discussions at numerous conferences around the world. John is fluent in English and Afrikaans.

Professor Paul Pronyk

Dr Pronyk is one of the founders of the IMAGE Project. He is an infectious disease physician and global health specialist with over two decades of experience in low and middle-income countries. He is Professor of Global Health at Duke-NUS (Singapore) and Duke University (USA) and currently directs the Duke-NUS Centre for Outbreak Preparedness and is Deputy Director, SingHealth Duke NUS Global Health Institute

Dr Pronyk has held senior positions at UNICEF where he oversaw health, nutrition and WASH programs in Indonesia; led UNICEF’s Ebola response in Sierra Leone; and served as the technical lead for the UN Commission on Life Saving Commodities and RMNCH Trust Fund at UNICEF Headquarters (New York).

Previously, Dr Pronyk led major cross-disciplinary research programs in health systems strengthening and communicable disease control for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and The Earth Institute at Columbia University supporting 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. He has published widely across a range of disciplines including communicable disease control, health systems, data & analytics, child health and nutrition, gender-based violence, social capital and the social determinants of health.

Lufuno Barro, MPH

Lufuno is a certified Gender, Public Health and International Development specialist, with twenty-two (22) years of experience in gender transformative programming, integrating Social Norms Change and Women’s Economic Empowerment approaches for the prevention of Gender-based Violence.

Formerly as IMAGE Director, Lufuno lead IMAGE’s transition from pilot into an operational gender-based violence prevention program for twelve (12) years (2008 – 2022), this phase of work earned a Gold award from the American Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Chevron South Africa as part of Corporate Social Investment. She further supported IMAGE integration within The Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF), currently, she is a Technical Advisor and also a member of the IMAGE Advisory Board.

Before leading IMAGE Lufuno developed and implemented various integrated multisectoral Gender-based Violence response models and programs within public health systems in South Arica between (2000 – 2007), including one of the first One-stop Family violence and sexual assault trauma centers in South Africa. This model is widely adopted and currently is commonly referred to as the Thuthuzela Care Center model. More recently and as Technical Advisor and lead researcher, she designed FIFA’s first-of-its-kind pilot project on “Promoting menstrual health and girls’ education through sports and development In South Sudan”. She has published work in peer-reviewed journals.

Lufuno is a member of various global advisory groups and provided an expert contribution to the development of frameworks to guide programming for the prevention of gender-based violence; including the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) INSPIRE framework; WHO and UN Women’s RESPECT Women framework; Foundational Elements for GBV programming for USAID (United States Agency for International Development); IPV – ADAPT + framework for adaptation of the Gender–based Violence prevention programs for the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) and Equality institute.