Hygiene Promotion - IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

areas, slabs and sanplats for latrines, wickerwork lining and dried bricks for latrine pits,pots for water filters and sticks for drying frames;• the ability to facilitate local women and men on using natural local materials such assmall pebbles and seeds, and low cost material such as brown paper and felt tippedpens to prepare maps, charts and matrices with which they can map out localconditions and practices for problem identification, analysis, planning and monitoring.Participatory methods and toolsParticipatory methods and tools are a great help in informed planning and decisionmaking.They help not only to plan and monitor the implementation of hygieneimprovements, but also to plan and monitor performance of management organisationsand financing systems. Methodologies exist that utilize locally available no cost material,e.g. PRA/PLA and MPA or ready-made kits such as PHAST (Appendix 10, 11 and 12). Formore on participatory tools go to Appendix 9. Cautions on use and costs mentioned aboveare also valid for programmes that promote community managed hygiene improvements.Two examples of participatory techniques and tools in community-managed hygienepromotion programmes:• Forming a management organisationIn community-managed hygiene promotion programmes, the presence of a wellfunctioning,capable, representative and trusted local organisation to manage theprogramme is crucial to its success. The technique described here helps to form such anorganisation, or to see if an existing organisation could be adapted. In an open meeting,women and men discuss the tasks of a water, sanitation and/or health and hygienecommittee. For each task, they make a small drawing, write a card (if people are allliterate) or choose a life symbol, such as a coin for financial management. They also list,draw or choose symbols for the kind of characteristics and expertise committee membersneed to have, e.g. live in the community, have time, have consent of husband. A thirdaspect they consider is which groups the members must represent, e.g. come equally froma red (better-off), blue (middle class) and green (poorer) household. The group thinks ofcandidates and decides which women and men meet their own criteria and are likely tomake a good committee. The group, or local leaders, approach these candidates and acommittee is formed.• Welfare classificationThis tool helps to integrate attention to poverty in the inventory, analysis, planning andimplementation of local community-managed hygiene promotion programmes. First theparticipants make drawings of a better off, a worse-off and an in-between household. Theythen list the characteristics of each group. They also count how many of the households intheir area fall in each group. For this, they distribute the same number of beans as thereare households in their area over the three drawings. They use the information to identifywhich houses belong to which group and mark the results on their map. They use theinformation also to decide if the committee is representative. Alternatively, they use theinformation to make a summary table. The three socio-economic groups become the rows.IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre 25