Promoting SODIS a pro-poor point-of-use water treatment technology in peri-urban Zimbabwe Sharon Murinda

2 Background: Water  1.1 billion people lack access to improved water sources  1.8 million people die every year due to diarrheal illnesses  Diarrheal illnesses due to contaminated water or improper sanitation and hygiene  WHO: Millenium Development Goal: halve number of people without safe drinking water (until 2015)  WHO supports SODIS as one means to reach the MDGs

3 Project areas: Baseline  N = 878 interviewees  90% women  Mean age 34  M = 8 years education  Less than 1$ per day  4 to 5 people in 1 household  24% unemployed, 20% vendors, 11% informal traders, 17% housewives  Attitude, convictions, expectations, habits

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6 Solar water disinfection: SODIS

7 SODIS is…  … a simple household water treatment system  … point-of-use water disinfection  … affordable  … environmentally sustainable  … socially sustainable

8 SODIS Dissemination  Community Meetings  Bottle Center  Promotion

9 Bottle center  Sources for bottles located (bottle collectors and hotels), connection arranged between them  With a Token, bottle was redeemed for half-price

10 Promotion Promoters(N=43) These are respected local people, leaders and influential people from the community

11 Promoters training  Sensitization on good health and hygienic practices  Capacity building on SODIS and its dissemination  Role play  Duration – one day training

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16 Household visits by promoters

17 Flyers used by Promoters Persuasion to do and to talk with pass-on- task

18 Diffusion check  To assess the impact and level of dissemination of SODIS  Division of area in squares, randomized visit of 1 of 9 parts of each square on the map  Short interviews about 5 minutes  Questions about: –SODIS behaviour, intervention check –communication patterns –Reasons to do or not to do SODIS, influencing factors

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20 Results  Community meetings attendance was about 20% of the whole population in both areas  Promotion –43 promoters x 10 households per day x 60 days = household visits – flyers were distributed –6 000 Token distributed  Diffusion check was done in 1023 households (N=1023) after the promotion phase so as to assess the impact of promotion.

21 Diffusion Results  The average household size was 4 (SD = 1.8) persons  The mean number of children under the age of 5 per household was 0.9 (SD = 0.97 About 20% of the interviewees have heard about Sodis through either the promoter, friends, enumerator, bottle center or the community meetings And of the 20%, 10% are not doing it and 90% are doing it either regularly or irregularly

22 Source of information for SODIS Information event/community meetings(15.8%) Friend/neighbour (4.3%) Interviewer/enumerator (6.4% ) Promoter (38%) Bottle centre (20%)

23 Communication and social interaction factors  Other people are trustworthy and their opinion important, but water treatment is not talked about  Official events or official people have a high credibility and impact factor  Other people‘s behaviour and opinion influences their own behaviour and opinion  Enhance talking about SODIS and thus social influence (e.g. pass-on-task)

24 From the Diffusion check done, Promoters had the greatest influence on SODIS dissemination and uptake because of 1.Their social status in the communities 2.The approach they used –how convincing it was 3.Their attitude towards dissemination of SODIS- e.g looking down upon the household because of an existing diarrhoea case in the household

25 From the Diffusion check, it can also be noted that:  Trustworthy and respected people in society can help in the adoption of a new technology  There is need of constant visits to households when a new technology is introduced  Adoption of a new technology doesn’t happen to everyone at one go.  Some people need to have diarrhoea or cholera for them to do SODIS

26 Results of :Reasons for not doing SODIS?  Bottles not available  Always forget  Shyness  No record of diarrhoea ever experienced in the household  Too easy/simple  No record of efficiency recorded in Zimbabwe

27 Conclusion  With more of promotion activities from the bottle center and the promoters, SODIS has a high potential of being adopted even more

28 Thank you! or