Project Empower continues to develop and refine interventions that will prevent violence and HIV especially in the lives of young women and men in informal settlements and rural areas. We have a 18 month grant with the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) which enables us to work with young women from informal settlements to deepen our understanding of their agency in preventing violence in their intimate partnerships, and to work with young women to develop a violence prevention curriculum.

We are also working in partnership with researchers from the South African Medical Research Council, the University of KwaZulu Natal, and the University College London on a 36 month project exploring contextual factors that shape HIV risk for young men and young women in South Africa. This work will be implemented in a rural area in the Jozini Municipality, a rural area close to Mozambique and in several informal settlements in eThekwini.