UCSF: Empowerment programme

Projects Info

UCSF: Empowerment programme
  • Contact:

  • Project Manager:
    Mzee Lwana
    Tel: +27 (0) 11 715 5847
    .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

    • Empowering MSM

    Recognising the barriers to HIV prevention and treatment among men who have sex with men (MSM) in South Africa, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Anova had a busy year in 2011 ensuring the groundwork is laid for the implementation of a health empowerment programme MSM in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

    Based on UCSF’s original M-powerment programme, which was conceptualised and implemented with great success across the United States and elsewhere, the Anova and UCSF partnership has facilitated preliminary research into the risks and realities faced by black MSM in townships in South Africa.

    Interim analysis has begun to reveal the nuances of the social and cultural context inhabited by MSM, including the various factors which lead to an increased risk of HIV, discrimination and stigmatisation of MSM by healthcare workers and the community at large and the relations between different groups of MSM in the Nelspruit and Ermelo  areas.

    This information will form the blueprint for tailoring the original M-powerment programme to the South African context, thereby offering South African MSM a strategically packaged intervention suited to their specific needs.

    NIAID funds Anova's MSM-focused M-Powerment programme through UCSF.

    Project supported by:

    • National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
    • The University of California (UCSF)