Participatory planning activities

We use participatory planning activities to stimulate discussions about knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices relating to cooking, eating, drinking and hygiene behaviour.

A puppet show is used to teach children about hygiene practices in Nepal.

Credit: WaterAid / Kelly Jones

All of these activities are designed to build self-esteem and active involvement of community members in decision-making.

Some examples of these participatory hygiene planning activities are outlines below.

Hygiene behaviours three pile sorting

The community is shown 20 pictures that illustrate a mixture of good and bad hygiene practices that are relevant to them.

With guidance from a trained facilitator, participants sort the pictures in to categories ranging from very common to uncommon and bad to good.

The group then discusses the common good and bad practices to establish why they are good or bad, why people practice good behaviours, what prevents people changing bad practices, which practices the community should change, what should happen next and how, when and by whom these changes should be made.

Community mapping

Group participants are asked to create a map of their community showing places that are important to them including water sources and sanitation facilities. This provides a useful entry point for discussions about community water and sanitation needs.

Sanitation ladder

A series of up to ten pictures illustrating different methods of disposal of faeces is sorted by the group into a 'ladder' showing what they perceive as the worst method at the bottom progressing to the best at the top.

The group identifies where the community is now on the ladder, where it would like to be, what the constraints are to reaching that level and how such constraints can be overcome.

There is no single model of hygiene promotion across all WaterAid funded projects.

Credit: WaterAid / Jim Holmes

Story with a gap

Two posters are used, one showing a 'before' scene (a problem within the community) and the other an 'after' scene (an improved situation or solution to the problem). Discussion focuses on what the community thinks are feasible steps it can take to change conditions from 'before' to 'after'.

The examples listed above are just four of the many methods that WaterAid and its partners use to increase people's understanding of hygiene. Others include practical demonstrations, puppet shows, hygiene promotion tiles, picture books, games, drama, songs, radio shows and videos.

There is no single model of hygiene promotion across all WaterAid funded projects.

While mass media campaigns raising awareness of health issues (like those used in the UK) have a role, community focused hygiene promotion is more likely to take the form of market-place theatre, puppet shows and health rallies.

Inventive, innovative and imaginative strategies are the key to effecting behaviour change and can include:

• Recruitment of local health motivators who actively promote key hygiene behaviours within their own communities through education sessions, discussion groups and practical demonstrations.
• Low-cost credit schemes which make household latrines affordable.
• School health programmes which encourage students to link hygiene activities in schools with those taking place in their community.

By applying these participative approaches to our work, employing tools, techniques and methods which are inclusive, and by developing practical, attractive alternatives to existing risk practices, are witnessing significant hygiene behaviour change in the communities we works with.