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About the Innovation Lab
The Violence Prevention Innovation Lab is the first of its kind in Australia, with a mission to identify and strengthen transformative approaches to preventing gender-based violence.
Funded through a $7.5 million, 3-year philanthropic partnership with Minderoo Foundation, the Lab will enable partners to better test, evaluate, scale and embed promising primary prevention thinking into community-led action.
In 2026-27, the Lab will focus on accelerating evidence-based community projects through a suite of Innovation and Impact Challenge grants.
Grant updates
Our Watch is pleased to announce the second cohort of successful grant recipients of the Violence Prevention Innovation Lab’s Building Connections Challenge. This cohort is undertaking a design phase in the Lab until the end of July 2026:
Numburindi Development Aboriginal Corporation
Darwin Indigenous Men's Service Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Corporation
Community News Hub Aboriginal Corporation
Three Rivers Regional Assembly Aboriginal Corporation.
The 4 grantees represent a selection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led primary prevention initiatives designed by Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.
In the news
Check out the latest articles featuring the Lab:
Innovation lab rethinks violence prevention | Today
Starting Your Innovation Journey | Shackleton Labs
Contact the Lab
For inquiries about the Violence Prevention Innovation Lab get in touch with us via innovation.projects@ourwatch.org.au.
The team would love to hear from potential new funders and collaborators.
Current round grant projects
Numburindi Development Aboriginal Corporation
Project location: Northern Territory
A Woman’s Worth Through the Eyes of our Boys is a culturally-led initiative. The project will co-design and pilot a restorative learning program developed with Elders, mentors, youth, and cultural practitioners. Over a 12-month period, participants will take part in reflection sessions, storytelling interviews, cultural mentoring, and restorative circles that bring men, women, and young people together to listen and learn.
The project expands its reach through a partnership with NT Corrections to work with men who are incarcerated or serving community corrections orders. In prison settings, NDAC will guide men to reflect and record their understanding of women and relationships from childhood to the present. This guided reflection builds self-awareness, challenges violence-supportive beliefs, and supports cultural healing.
Darwin Indigenous Men's Service Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Corporation
Project location: Northern Territory
This project is a collaboration between the Darwin Indigenous Men’s Service (DIMS) and Mimal Land Management Aboriginal Corporation (Mimal) in Central Arnhem Land.
The project will be delivered at the Weemol located Mimal Ranger base and surrounding areas and will adapt and deliver the proven DIMS violence prevention program. The program will be tailored to include local cultural protocols, traditional knowledge, and healing on Country, addressing root causes like intergenerational trauma, marginalisation, and disconnection from identity.
Community News Hub Aboriginal Corporation
Project location: NSW
This project will support men and boys to build respectful, positive and gender‑equal relationships and reject rigid stereotypes by training a cohort of First Nations youth creators to design and publish short‑form videos that role‑model care, empathy, consent, help‑seeking and allyship.
Content standards will embed gender‑transformative approaches and accountability to women throughout production and publication.
Three Rivers Regional Assembly Aboriginal Corporation
Project location: NSW
Men of Lore: Respect, Culture and Connection is a culturally grounded, community-led program that extends the success of Three Rivers Regional Assembly Aboriginal Corporation (TRRA)’s annual Men’s Gathering into a structured, year-long model of learning, reflection, and leadership.
Over 12 months, TRRA will bring Aboriginal men together from across the Three Rivers footprint to explore what it means to be a strong, respectful man who leads through culture, equality, and care for community.
Round 1 grant projects
Dads Group
Project title: DadConnect
Project location: Queensland
DadConnect is a 12-month hybrid digital and place-based capability pilot that supports men and boys to build respectful, positive, gender-equal relationships. This is done by strengthening relational capability in fathers and building the workforce’s confidence and skill to engage men safely and effectively during the perinatal period.
SSI
Project title: Migrant and Refugee Fathers Project
Project location: Queensland
This project will bring together and facilitate a group of young fathers from migrant and refugee communities to explore and articulate what works and resonates in supporting young migrant and refugee men. This is particularly in the context of becoming fathers, to foster respectful, gender-equal relationships and challenge rigid ideas of masculinity.
New Story Company
Project title: Two Plays Project
Project location: Tasmania
Two playwrights will collaborate using a community engaged framework to write the performance scripts of two new plays about male violence against women and children, one told from a female perspective and one from a male perspective.
The plays will challenge rigid stereotypes of masculinity and provide a sense of both the problem and the possible solutions for audiences to be inspired by. New Story Company will also produce play readings, with follow-on community discussion sessions about the issues raised.
One Vision Productions
Project title: MPOWER PRO: FlowCoach AI
Project location: NSW and national
MPOWER PRO incorporating FlowCoach AI meets young men through hip hop – a language they already speak. This Indigenous-led platform uses artificial intelligence coaching to guide young people through songwriting as a pathway to emotional wellbeing. As they create, they develop emotional regulation skills, practice self-reflection, and build agency. The technology allows culturally grounded support to reach young men at scale, particularly those who don't engage with traditional services.
YLAB
Project title: The First 100
Project location: Victoria
The First 100 is a youth-led, community-driven social media project designed to help parents and young people have conversations about what healthy digital masculinity looks like today.
Engender Equality
Project title: Support for fathers of trans/LGBTIQA+ young people
Project location: Tasmania
The project will form a framework of support for fathers of trans/LGBTIQA+ young people to parent in gender affirming, equitable ways. Facilitated by a peer with relevant professional experience, the fathers will share parenting and family experiences through discussions of topics related to stereotypes of masculinity and fatherhood, and their interaction with cisgenderism, cisnormativity and homophobia. The group will focus on ways to individually and collectively challenge rigid masculinity stereotypes and limited understandings of gender in not only themselves, but interpersonal and community contexts.
Related
Diverse local not-for-profit projects announced as first Violence Prevention Innovation Lab grantees
Posted at 13 Feb, 2026
The grantees represent a broad range of new, community-led primary prevention initiatives across a diverse selection of organisations.
Posted at 18 Sep, 2025
The first of its kind Violence Prevention Innovation Lab will shortly launch in Australia to identify and strengthen transformative gender-based violence prevention approaches.