Vuyolwethu Mjijelwa

Imarisha Project Manager (South Africa)
E: vmjijelwa@uwc.ac.za

He holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Fort Hare with Advanced experience in Clinical Primary Health Care and Public Health Developmental programs.

Vuyolwethu joined SOPH in 2024 as part of the Learning partnerships for gender-transformation (LP4GT) in South Africa. This project aimed to create a collaborative community-based learning platform to support dialogue, exchange and capacity strengthening on gender-transformative approaches in adolescent and young people’s sexual and reproductive health rights and services. Now he is part of the Imarisha South African team as a Project Manager. His primary responsibility is to coordinate, manage and support research for the South Africa site. Imarisha Project is aimed at realizing the full potential of the PHC workforce by addressing gendered workplace violence in three countries (Burkina Faso, Tanzania and South Africa) based on principles of participatory research, decolonial, feminist and trauma informed approach.

Projects

Imarisha: Strengthening PHC by addressing gendered workplace violence

This consortium aims to fill an urgent and widespread gap in understanding and addressing workplace violence and its gendered dimensions experienced by the PHC workforce in three countries— Burkina Faso, South Africa and Tanzania—where high proportions of women work as PHC health workers and have reported high levels of violence. Imarisha is a Swahili word meaning ‘to strengthen’

Learning partnerships for gender-transformation (LP4GT) in South Africa

The three year project started in February 2022 and will develop and explore learning partnerships to support gender-transformative innovations in adolescent and young people’s sexual and reproductive health in South Africa

Intersectionality and sexual, reproductive and maternal health in Africa: Discussions from the gender transformation for Africa collaborative

As a collaboration of six implementation research grants on gender transformative approaches to sexual, reproductive and maternal health across Africa, we convened a conversation to discuss how intersectionality applied to our work.

GT4Africa Cohort Writing Workshop Report

The Gender Transformation for Africa (GT4Africa) Cohort Writing Workshop was held from 9-13 September 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa with 21 participants across the 6 projects and 13 organisations.