Vuyolwethu joined the School of Public Health (SOPH) in 2024 as part of the Learning Partnerships for Gender Transformation (LP4GT) in South Africa.

The project sought to establish a collaborative, community-based learning platform that facilitates dialogue, knowledge exchange, and capacity strengthening on gender-transformative approaches to adolescent and young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services. Within this project, he led qualitative research focusing on adolescent boys and young men and contributed to research involving male facilitators and interventionists. He also led the development and writing of a locally grounded gender glossary titled Some Key Gender and Sexuality Terms Decoded.

He is currently part of the Imarisha South Africa team, where he serves as Project Manager. In this role, he is responsible for coordinating, managing, and supporting research activities at the South African study site. In addition, he leads the project’s knowledge mobilisation activities, with a strong emphasis on stakeholder engagement and bidirectional learning. The Imarisha Project aims to realise the full potential of the primary healthcare (PHC) workforce by addressing gendered workplace violence across three countries—Burkina Faso, Tanzania, and South Africa—through participatory research informed by decolonial, feminist, and trauma-informed approaches.

His research interests include:

• Knowledge mobilisation anchored by co-design methodologies and community engagement principles
• Stakeholder engagement within collaborative, participatory, and multi-sectoral research processes
• Sexual and reproductive health and rights within diverse community and contexts
• Workplace violence and its gendered dimensions particularly within health systems