Heywood was an instrumental member of the task team that finalised South Africa’s National Strategic Plan on HIV, AIDS and STIs (2006-2011). He is also the co-founder of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance of South Africa (ARASA) – two of South Africa’s most prominent organisations working towards access to justice for people living with HIV and AIDS. As Executive Director of the AIDS Law Project (ALP), Heywood has been involved in successful public impact litigation around the rights of people living with HIV.

Mark received his BA Hons from Oxford University in 1986. Thereafter, he was involved for a decade in the anti-apartheid struggle from London and later South Africa. Between 1990 and 1994 he completed his MA in African Literature with the University of the Witwatersrand.

From 1991 to 1994, Janet was involved in negotiations for a settlement in South Africa from the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), through the Multi-Party Process to the establishment of the Transitional Executive Council (TEC). Becoming a Member of Parliament in 1994, she served as Chairperson of the National Assembly Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Water Affairs and Forestry and of the National Assembly Portfolio Committee on Water Affairs and Forestry, following April 1999 elections. She was involved in the negotiation and drafting of the final Constitution of South Africa and was a member of the 22-person Constitutional Committee of the Constitutional Assembly, the body responsible for steering of the constitution-making process. She left Parliament to take up the position of Special Advisor to the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry.

Janet has studied through both the University of the Witwatersrand and of London and has post-graduate qualifications in public administration, development management and economics. She worked in the South African Reserve Bank for five years as head of strategic analysis and support in the currency department. She took up her current position as National Director of the Legal Resources Centre in January 2006.

In this capacity she is responsible for the overall management of this public interest, human rights law clinic employing up to 80 members of staff in four offices around the country. She is actively engaged in networking activities inside South Africa and abroad in the interests of achieving the human rights mission of the LRC.

On 1 October 2009, Janet was appointed as a Commissioner on the South African Human Rights Commission.