About us

Staff Team

Edeline Boka – Administrator (p-t)
Gabriel Boka – Finance (p-t)
Brigid Comrie – Home-School Partnership Programme Co-ordinator
Shelley O’Carroll – Director and Early Literacy Programme Co-ordinator
Lesley Palmer – Project worker (Home-School Partnership Programme) (p-t)
Sue Setton – Project worker (Early Literacy Programme) (p-t)
Angelique Twiss – Grade R Project Co-ordinator

Edeline Boka worked as a Secretary for the District Magistrate in Zimbabwe Public Service for three years. She has a National Diploma in Secretarial studies and has also attended short courses in computer studies.

Gabriel Boka worked for the Ministry of Agriculture in Zimbabwe as an accounts clerk and senior accounts clerk from July 1990 to July 1998. He then worked for the Ministry of Health as an Accountant from August 1998 to March 2000. From April 2000 to February 2008 he worked for the Ministry of Local Government as an Internal Auditor. He also did part-time bookkeeping for AR Engineering in Zimbabwe. He has a Diploma in Financial Accounting, a Diploma in Credit Management and a Degree in Business Administration (BBA).

Brigid Comrie has a Bachelor of Education from the University of Cape Town (UCT), a Diploma in Specialised Education from the University of South Africa, a Speech and Hearing Specialist Diploma from UCT, and a Parenting and Leadership Certificate from the Parent Centre. She worked for the Western Cape Education Department where she was responsible for managing Learning Support in the Mainstream, and subsequently as a freelance education specialist. She is the author of several text-books published by Juta’s. For the past four years she has developed and co- ordinated the Home-school Partnership Programme for Wordworks.

Dr Shelley O’Carroll trained as a remedial teacher and educational psychologist. From 2002 to 2007 she specialised in assessments and support for children with dyslexia. In 2004, she began a doctorate with the Institute of Education at the University of London. Her research for her PhD was conducted in South Africa and explored ways of supporting the early literacy development of Grade One children learning to read and write in English as a second language. Since 2005, she has been developing and co-ordinating the Wordworks Early Literacy Programme.

Lesley Palmer has worked as a primary school teacher at various schools around the country. She completed a DSE (Remedial) at the University of Cape Town in 1986 and worked as a remedial teacher at Claremont Primary, Michael Oak and Rondebosch Boys Junior School. In recent years she has been working with predominantly second language learners doing academic and language support.

Sue Setton qualified as a junior primary school teacher at Rhodes University and taught Grades R to 2 for seven years. She has experience teaching deaf children and children who speak English as a second language. She completed a Learning Support Diploma and worked at Herzlia as a learning support teacher and special needs co-ordinator for 10 years. She is currently working part-time as a learning support teacher while running enrichment classes at Capricorn Primary School.

Angelique Twiss has a HDE from the Johannesburg College of Education and a further Diploma in Learners with Barriers to Learning from Rand Afrikaans University. Over the past 18 years, she has taught at Holy Rosary School, St Stithians Junior Preparatory and St Peters School for Girls in Johannesburg. She specialises in Grade R and Grade 1 age groups, in particular all aspects of literacy at this level. She was the director of her own business, Funky Fingers, for eight years, which developed learning strategies through creative craft projects for girls and boys between the ages of 4 and 12 years. The classes were offered at a number of schools in the Johannesburg area. She has recently relocated to Cape Town to join the Wordworks team.

Board Members

Chairperson - Jonathan Morgan
Jonathan works for REPSSI as the knowledge development manager and Psychosocial resource person. He is the author of the Hero Book Programme.

Other members:

Xolisa Guzula
Xolisa has been working for PRAESA, based at UCT, for over ten years as a bilingual education and early literacy specialist. He is a master storyteller.

Jackie van Rooyen
In 2007 Jackie attended the Home-school Partnership programme at Highlands, where her children are at school, and made the decision to change her job and work with children. She has completed the facilitators training for the Home-school Partnership programme and has helped to facilitate the programme for other parents. She is a teacher assistant and co-ordinator of the Early Literacy Programme at Highlands primary.

Shelley O’Carroll