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)