Community members residing within the Jirapa Municipality will be experiencing a significant improvement in the quality of hygiene, nutrition, sanitation and health status of the people for the next five years through an intervention by WaterAid Ghana, a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) based in the United Kingdom (UK) and operating in Ghana.
The project christened IGNIT3 Project is a collaboration between WaterAid Ghana and Global Affairs Canada which is the funding agency is being rolled out in three countries namely; Pakistan, Malawi and Ghana.
These came to light during a workshop held here in Jirapa, where health workers, Municipal Assembly staff, media practitioners and community volunteers were taken through the development of campaign activities, material for Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Nutrition campaign, where they brainstormed and provided several innovative ideas to facilitate the successful implementation of the project.
According to Rev. Gilbert Asante an official of WaterAid Ghana, traditionally, behavioral traits have been altered by couching messages for targeted people by applying the fear factor, where people act based on the consequences of their actions or inactions.
According to Rev. Asante, the focus of the project is to integrate hygiene behavior messages into nutrition by understanding hand hygiene, clean kitchens, food hygiene behaviors and environmental cleanliness by appealing to the emotions of people to effect the necessary needed change.
Attempts have been made in the past to change hygiene behavior by appealing to the fear factor, being the fear of ill health, diseases and death which has not resulted in lasting behavioral change because people revert to their old bad habits once the fear is diminished.
A research was conducted in selected communities in the Jirapa Municipality and messages are being developed around the findings of that research by appealing to the emotions of the people.
WaterAid Ghana in conjunction with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has developed approaches that identify behavior, create information around these behaviors, evaluate and analyze the information and consider the culture of the people with the motive of influencing change by appealing to their emotions rather than utilizing the traditional practice of instilling fear in them.
WaterAid is working with the Jirapa Municipal Assembly and the Ghana Health Service and will also be working with forty health care facilities across the municipality by constructing reliable water facilities, provision of incinerators to manage waste adequately and improve the capacity of health personnel, volunteers and community members.
These interventions are necessary because research shows that people sometimes visit a health facility and end up contracting other infections from the facility, making safe water and adequate waste management critical for a healthy living.
The building of the capacity of community members also relies on the human rights approach where community members are aware of and demand the required services from health facilities and duty bearers especially when it comes to the provision of safe water and sanitation facilities such as waste dumpling sites and waste collection bins.
Felix Gbevillah a facilitator with WaterAid led participants to develop campaign materials such as camping banners, wrist bands story pictures job aids among other materials.
Participants demonstrated practically, by describing vividly how these materials are to be developed to stimulate change.
