HWTS Promotion Strategies
Michael Lea - Thursday 18 May 2006
Key Point - Positive Choice Theme
For "promotion to be effective, one of the important aspect of communication programmes is that they should emphasise “positive” (rather than “negative”) attitudes such as clarity, taste, good health, affordability, and ease of use. These were found to be better predictors of whether people were likely to adopt and sustain water treatment practices. They concluded that these preferred attributes of water should be used to promote water treatment, and that campaigns should emphasise “staying healthy” rather than “preventing disease”. They observed that mothers were not aware of the concept of “germs”, but indirectly linked good health with clean water, and bad quality water with diarrhoea and stomach upsets" (Nath KJ, Bloomfield SF, & Jones M, 2006, p. 33).
Reference
Nath, KJ., Bloomfield. SF., & Jones, M. (2006). Household water storage, handling and point-of-use treatment. A review commissioned by IFH; published on [http://www.ifh-homehygiene.org]
Key Point - Community Health Workers
Michael Lea - Thursday 18 May 2006
"In developing national programmes for promotion of hygiene practices such as household water treatment and safe storage, it is now recognised that one of the key activities is developing capacity for hygiene promotion at local level, i.e building a sufficient network of “community/ fieldworkers/ professionals” (community health workers, community nurses, paediatricians, NGOs, school teachers) with expertise in, and commitment to, hygiene promotion. Community workers are vital to successful hygiene promotion because only they understand their local community and local conditions" (p. 34).
Reference
Nath KJ, Bloomfield SF, & Jones M (2006). Household water storage, handling and point-of-use treatment. A review commissioned by IFH; published on [http://www.ifh-homehygiene.org]
Sharing Personal Experiences
Jalmandir, Michael Lea - Friday 19 May 2006
With good intentions, amble funding, and excellent promotion logistics the outcomes can still be less than desirable. Brief "build and they'll come" case in point - villagers may still prefer open defecation over newly built VIP latrines - instead using the buildings for grain storage. During a 2006 visit to India I gave a talk on the merits of Moringa oleifera to clarify water. Afterwards when local village health workers (women) were asked why the local bountiful seeds weren't been utilized by the community, the response was that villagers believed that the tree brought bad luck to the user.
