Hygiene Promotion - IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

• What may prevent this change in each target group?• How can different target audiences be reached and involved?• How do we measure the effects, and the cost-effectiveness, of the programme?There are many different reasons why people want better hygiene facilities and practices:to live in a cleaner environment, more convenience, less work, more status, self-respect,raised value of the house, better life for children, more safety at night, more safety forwomen and girls, more privacy, lower risk of witchcraft, less opportunity for adultery, lowerwalking distance, protection from bad weather, solving problems of sick or elderly relatives(parents), improving sanitation or hygiene provisions as a condition for marriage, followingan example by neighbours or admired others, responding to pressure from others, meetingneeds of visiting relatives, etc. Different groups have different reasons. Finding out whatmessages are best for which groups helps design better programmes.4.3 Community-managed, locally specific hygiene promotionprogrammesGovernments and others concerned with inadequate hygiene may also want to develop thecapacities of local governments and groups to plan and manage their own actionprogrammes for better hygiene practices and conditions in their locations. In communitymanagedhygiene promotion programmes, a representative local organisation managesthe planning and implementation of local hygiene promotion activities. The programmemay have a range of objectives:• Immediate: to mobilise community resources and build capacities to identify andmeasurably reduce risky conditions and practices and strengthen positive ones ofpeople's own choice.• Longer-term: to reach and maintain a level of hygiene that is acceptable to the womenand men of the community and that cuts out, or significantly reduces, the previouslyexisting risks of disease transmission.• Ultimate: to empower communities to solve their own hygiene problems and reducethe local incidence of, and mortality from, water and sanitation related diseases.In addition to direct hygiene and health related objectives, there may also be widerdevelopmental objectives: strengthen the sense of community and community action,increase the analytical, managerial and problem solving capacities of communitymembers, reduce inequalities between genders and social and economic groups, enhanceself-confidence and self-respect of various groups, including those that are disadvantagedor marginalised.Community-managed hygiene promotion programmes are best undertaken with relativelywell-organised communities with active leaders and their own resources. The communitiesneed not be homogeneous and well off, but unity and solidarity have to be sufficientlystrong. Otherwise, interested communities may first need to demonstrate that they canform active organisations and effectively manage some form of locally initiated change. A‘community’ may vary from a single neighborhood or village to administrative clustersIRC International Water and Sanitation Centre 23