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3.9.2.i CASE STUDY: Lutheran World Federation: community mobilisation through drama for hygiene promotion
Within the districts of Katakwi and Amuria, LWF has been using the Community Health Clubs approach to conduct
weekly hygiene and sanitation promotion meetings, including the formation of an indigenous drama group.
Major findings: Most people find drama interesting and educative, resulting in high turn-up; the drama group
creates an environment with which communities identify, making sensitisation effective and efficient. Further, in
villages where the local leaders are corporative, it is easy to achieve results especially constructing hygiene and
sanitation facilities, compared to those where local leaders are not exemplary. The use of cluster heads plays a role
in ensuring group work and easy mobilisation of members for the meetings. As a result, the attendances in hygiene
sensitisations increased by over 17% as compared to sensitisations that did not have drama shows. Use of drama
in hygiene and sanitation sensitisation brings together people in larger numbers as compared to sensitisations
without drama where women attendance is usually higher than others; and exemplary local leadership is a key to
success especially when it comes to construction of hygiene and sanitation facilities
Challenges: Hunger is affecting turn-up for project activities as people continuously search of food. Further, there
is poor community attitude towards the use of locally available materials for constructing hygiene and sanitation
facilities arising from the dependency syndrome common with destabilised communities, further challenged by
the weakness of hygiene pratices. Another challenge is the presented by the use of different approaches by
different organisations targeting the same community.
Recommendations:
- Utilising community gatherings e.g. clan meetings, burials and food distribution for sensitisation purposes.
- Continuous sensitisation to promote use of locally available materials for construction of hygiene and sanitation
facilities as the only sustainable solution/option.
- Effective coordination amongst partners needs to be emphasised to avoid targeting the same communities using
different approaches but delivering the same service.
- More sensitisation and campaigns should be put towards hand-washing so as to improve people’s attitude
towards hand-washing at critical times.
3.9.3 Enhancing social institutions for sustainable behaviour change
The sustainability and continued adoption of gains made by hygiene promotion activities is greatly enhanced by
the existence of supportive social institutions. Such institutions include:
- School health clubs: supported to engage in hygiene and sanitation promotion within and outside the
school (for example by Kyetume Community Based Health Care Programme (KCBHCP-Mukono), Wera
Development Association (WEDA-Katakwi, Amuria) and Youth Development Organisation (YODEO-Arua);
- Community hygiene and sanitation monitoring teams (children and adults) as supported by Community
Development Action (CDA - Mityana);
- Community based health workers/educators: conducting home visits and continued sensitisation; these
were facilitated by African Evangelistic Enterprise (AEE – Kampala), Busoga trust (BT - Mpigi), Community
Integrated Development Initiatives (CIDI – Kampala), Sustainable Sanitation and Water Renewal Systems
(SSWARS – Kampala), Wera Development Association (WEDA – Amuria, Katakwi) and Kasanga PHC
(Kasese). The latter noted that support from community leaders is essential for the success of such
initiatives, and that efforts are frustrated by low levels of literacy
- Teacher training: a total of 1152 science teachers have been trained by NGOs in hygiene education;
further teacher training in action based teaching methodologies to address environmental challenges,
including environmental health was undertaken by Conservation Effort for Community Development
(CECOD) in 15 schools in Mbarara and Bushenyi districts, reaching 165 primary school teachers
- Training of community leaders: local, religious and cultural leaders from two districts were trained by
Caritas and Divine Waters Uganda in Lira.
- Hygiene promotion through Water User Committees: WUCs organising hygiene promotion activities and
mobilisation, and leading by example to adopt good hygiene practices as noted by CARITAS Gulu,
Christian Women and Youth Development Alliance (CWAY - Sironko), Hope for Orphans (HOFO - Kanungu)
and Welthungerhilfe (Lira).
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