RB and Raleigh Tanzania Promote WASH Behaviour Change
The Global Volunteer Challenge (GVC) has seen RB and Raleigh Tanzania volunteers engage in workshops focused on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) behaviour change and formative research conducted by national youth volunteers back in February, as a basis for idea generation. Using key insights and findings from the formative research, teams developed ideas and conducted a research visit in rural communities to understand how their behaviour change intervention might work in practice. The final stage of the GVC saw 10 teams develop their chosen idea into a proposal and pitch to a panel of Raleigh Tanzania and RB stakeholders:
“What was most evident on pitching day was not only the amazing collaboration between individual teams but the wider GVC group itself. The energy in the room was charged as teams listened to each other’s proposals, and shared investment over every idea in the knowledge that the creativity and innovation presented has the potential to make a great impact in the WASH sector.” – Hollie, GCV Coordinator and Facilitator, Raleigh Tanzania
Ideas pitched were considered against a criteria set by Raleigh Tanzania to ensure interventions could be delivered by youth volunteers and to assess their sustainability, as well as cultural sensitivity, amongst other categories helping to ensure best rate of success.
“There has been a wide range of ideas presented. Hearing different perspectives on how to tackle the problem of poor hygiene in rural Tanzania has sparked a lot of inspiration and I’m excited to see how some of these ideas can be taken forward, especially as a lot of them are very new and haven’t been done before.” – Vanessa, Country Operations Manager, Raleigh Tanzania
Intervention ideas ranged from being influencer-led, including the mobilisation of health committees, doctors, influential women and babbas; to increasing economic capabilities through integrating a livelihoods model to promote positive WASH behaviours; as well as nudge style interventions, which looked to the physical environment and innovative product design for hand washing ease in the home.
This part of RB’s GVC has been a great success and provided Raleigh Tanzania with new angles to tackle behaviour change in rural communities. Soon RB and Raleigh Tanzania will be choosing a selection of the ideas pitched to be taken forward and trialled across 30 communities by national youth volunteers in the coming months. Stay tuned for further updates on the innovations created by young Tanzanians and RB employees.
