Promoting critical consciousness for women's empowerment: Strategies and lessons from a South African HIV and violence prevention intervention

Issues: Within the HIV and violence prevention fields, ‘women's empowerment' holds potential as a tool for health promotion and an outcome along the causal pathway to prevention. Despite its central position in HIV/AIDS and violence discourse, little is known about how to operationalize the concept on-the-ground, how to measure its impact, or how to implement empowerment strategies most effectively. Description: We examined one specific strategy for empowerment within a rural South African intervention. We assessed how the Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equity (IMAGE) used ‘critical consciousness' as a tool for empowerment and collective action around partner violence and HIV/AIDS. We collected qualitative data in the form of in-depth interviews with managers, trainers, and participants, and analyzed the data in QSR NVivo, a qualitative software package. Lessons Learned: We identified concrete tools for interventions aiming to promote women's empowerment through critical consciousness. Key techniques, such as rooting discussion, probing, and role-plays, can build critical consciousness. Collective action, while challenging to implement, helps participants share common problems and translate new information into personal change. Recommendations: As new models for HIV and violence prevention are tested, it is important that calls for women's empowerment are met with realistic program strategies. We have taken a first step towards translating one such strategy- critical consciousness- into practical lessons for structural interventions. We encourage programs to model IMAGE tools that were successful at building critical consciousness and to incorporate individual and collective action to engage participants in changing broader health structures.