Hygiene Promotion - IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

The two columns are labelled ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ of an improved facility. The numberof owned facilities are distributed over the cells with the help of beans, one per household.The outcome shows who is worst-off and may need help.For community planning, implementation and monitoring, many other participatorytools/techniques are available (Appendix 9). Social marketing programmes tend to usegroup-adjusted audio-visual and printed materials for information and knowledge and backthese up by interpersonal contacts to achieve behaviour change. These contacts are oftenthrough home visits. However, one can also work in homogenous groups and useparticipatory tools. A growing number of such tools for hygiene work are available (SeeTOP Resources).A word of cautionCriticism on the use of participatory tools (Cornwall et al., 2001) also applies to their use inhygiene promotion http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip/information/recentpubkn.htmlEspecially in the case of investigations, there is a tendency to use participatory toolsextractively, to meet the agency's need for the data, and not to assist the communities toassess, analyse and plan.Participatory tools and techniques for investigations are not one-time add-ons in the initialstage to programmes that thereafter remain the same. They link to the use of participatoryapproaches in all other stages of projects and programmes and shift power from thepromoter to the community members.Use of participatory tools can also become a pseudo-participatory ritual when facilitatorsdo not consider and adjust to local situations, and where they direct and dominate, ratherthan facilitate, group sessions. Facilitators must have the right personal aptitudes andattitudes for participation and be sensitive to gender and social equity.Dropping habits of one-way, top-down hygiene instruction does not come easy. It cannotbe learned in a short training course of a few days or a week. What seems to work best tochange mindsets and build up different skills and attitudes is hands-on experience underthe guidance of someone who is well versed in participatory techniques and equity issues.It means creating the conditions for equal participation of women and men, including thosefrom poor and marginal groups in and during sessions, and specifying in the toolsthemselves how the different and often inequitable division of work and decision-makingbetween the sexes, and class differences may directly limit the good results of hygienepromotion programmes.Gender and social inequities that affect hygiene promotionWomen and the poor often do not have the same opportunities as men and local elites toattend meetings for information, planning or evaluation. The same goes for participatorytool sessions. In meetings and sessions, women and the poor keep in the background;men and elites dominate, unless the facilitators have the right techniques to overcomeinequalities and hierarchies. If women or the poor voice knowledge and views, they are26 Hygiene promotion