Jill Lewis

Jill Lewis holds a PhD from Cambridge University. She taught for 25 years each Spring semester as Professor of Literature and Gender Studies in the School for Interdisciplinary Arts at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. Involved in the Women’s Movement and feminisms from the 1970s, since 1986 her interests in cultural representation, theatre, participative educational processes, cross-cultural collaborations and the politics of gender have linked actively with a wide range of initiatives in HIV and AIDS prevention education and capacity building. She has worked on gender-focused HIV awareness and prevention in England, Nordic countries, Estonia, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, DR Congo, Burundi, Sudan, Somalia, Senegal. She led the NIKK Living for Tomorrow 3-year project with young adults in Estonia, and her HIV work has included collaborations with the Norwegian Refugee Council, IPPF, Care International, WAGGSS. She is the project initiator and executive producer of the Norad-funded film Protection (110 min creative documentary, 2010) shot in Sierra Leone, Kenya and S. Africa, to increase discussion of the challenges and importance of condom protection among men and boys in the era of HIV. Her home base is in England.