Post on 22-Feb-2016
description
The BALatrine Project:
Community Engagement;Empowerment; and Capacity building
Prof Don Stewart, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia
What is Community Engagement?
any process that involves the public in problem-solving or decision making and uses the public input to make more informed decisions.
Engaging with the community is more than just consulting. Community engagement includes informing, consulting with, involving, collaborating with and empowering the community.
What is ‘Engagement’
Inclusiveness Reaching out Mutual respect Integrity Affirming diversity Adding value
What is‘Community Empowerment’? A social process that helps people
gain control over their own lives. A process that fosters power (that
is, the capacity to implement) in people, for use in their own lives, their communities, and in their society, by acting on issues that they define as important.
What is‘Capacity Building’? Sometimes described as the ‘invisible
work’ of health promotion. It is the ‘behind the scenes’ efforts by
practitioners that increases the likelihood that effective health promotion programs will be sustained.
An approach to the development of sustainable skills, organizational structures, resources and commitment to health improvement in health and other sectors, to prolong and multiply health gains many times over.
Capacity building is an approach to development that builds independence.It can be: a ‘means to an end’, where the purpose is for others to take on programs an ‘end’ in itself, where the intent is to
enable others, from individuals through to
government departments, to have greater capacity to
work together to solve problems a process, where capacity building strategies
are routinely incorporated as an important
element of effective practice.
From Buzz Words to Practice! The BALatrine project
Adoption and acceptability
Changes in behaviour
Construction a septic tank or pit;
a concrete plate, or mould;
and a removable U-bend water closet/barrier.
Were latrines accepted in ‘intervention’ village? 99% (396) were happy about the new latrine
program 82% (328) considered that they were actively
participating in the project 89% (357) started using it as soon as it was
dry 7% (28) were still using the river 94.8% (379) were prepared to carry water in
buckets to flush the latrine 95.3% (381) were prepared to clean it 94% (376) were prepared to clean up after
children
Overall, a picture of acceptability ….
Importance of engagement, empowerment, capacity-building
& Support
“When meditating over a disease, I never think of finding a remedy for it, but instead, a means of preventing it.”
(Louis Pasteur cited in Dishman, Washburn and Heath, 2004)