Hi Chawie!
 
Wow, what a great pace and what an excellent message!
 
Thank you so much for sharing this experience and providing us with these guidelines on the productive relationship between art, fun and WASH. If you happen to have on hand any studies on message retention in fun environments, I would be very grateful if you could share them here, the topic is very interesting.
 
Years ago,we worked very intuitively with the approach of using comic resources and incorporating music to promote solid waste separation.
 
Our main interest was to capture the attention of students in “Talks in schools”, with innovative methods, applying characters and comic sketches where we inserted behavior change techniques guided by the RANAS methodology (risks, attitude, norm, ability and self-regulation).
 
It was an experience that motivated us to ask ourselves about the role of humor in the learning and content dissemination processes. During the presentations we noticed an increase in the participation and motivation of young people to be part of the proposed actions and another key factor is that they recorded parts of the presentation and then shared them among themselves. Messages definitely move better through art and humor.
 
We also developed a musical waste separation campaign. The idea was to make music with separated, clean and dry waste. The slogan was “clean and dry, your waste sounds better”. You can check some of these materials here and here.  

 
Regarding water care, the environmental brigade Tukuyninchejpaj from Cochabamba participated in a contest called “the guardians of water”, for which they made a choreography and a murga (music with percussion) to share a message about water care.
 
you can watch the video here  
 
I share with you the lyrics of this song translated from Spanish:
 
Drip, drip,drip, drip,
your money you save, your money you save
turn off your water tap, check your water tap
so that the water will last you a lifetime
 
Drip, drip,drip, drip, drip, drip, drip
with rain water, wash your clothes
water your plants, mop your floors
and use it in the toilet.
 
Drip, drip,drip, drip, drip, drip, drip
the water is running out, the water is running out
let's take care of “Yaku” (water in Quechua), let's take care of the water
from “jatunmama” (grandmother in Quechua) to the “wawa” (baby in Quechua)
 
Drop, drop,drop, drop, drop, drop, drop
The “pacha”(mother earth) notices it, the pacha notices it.
The trees and plants can't stand it...
and you...don't you notice it?
 
Without “yaku” (water) there is no “pacha” (mother earth),
Without “pacha” there is no life
Drop, drop,drop, drop, drop, drop, drop
 
Thanks to all the people who shared their experiences in this thread, I reviewed them and they are very inspiring. You are all invited to continue sharing experiences that unite art and humor with sanitation, hygiene and water issues.
 
Greetings!

Hi Paresh,
The conventional messages of the Waterproof campaign would be: Shake it, WASH it, Break it and Make it . . .

Let’s SHAKE bad habits. 
Let’s WASH our dirty hands with water and soap. 
Let’s BREAK the spread of infection and illnesses. 
Let’s MAKE it happen for all of us.

However, the campaign aims to go beyond these messages and challenge conventional approaches. It encourages young people to participate in promoting good hygiene practices using universal languages such as music, dance, sports, and arts. The campaign also highlights the importance of providing access to clean water and sanitation facilities to help people achieve their basic rights.

The latest collaboration with Ghetto Kids is an example of how music and dance can be used to share important messages in a fun way. While sharing messages is important, it is just the first step. The challenge lies in improving knowledge and changing behaviour and habits.
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Studies have shown that people are more likely to retain messages when they are having fun. This is why catchy songs and jingles are often used in commercials. The  Upward Spiral theory  by Patty Van Cappellen, Makanyi's  WEDC 2934 submission on Football for WASH , and  Getting into the Game, UNICEF  initiatives all present good cases of how universal activities like sports can support social inclusion, cognitive development, and change attitudes, practices, and behaviours.


While fun and games are important, the goal is to promote good hygiene practices and access to clean water and sanitation facilities for everyone.

Viva con Agua and One Drop are looking to set-up a page on unconventional approaches like music, art, and sports for behavioural change. We welcome the participation of other organisations.

Dear All,
Plugging in a presentation made by Belinda Abrahams at the Annual SuSanA meeting, Please see the recording  of the hybrid part of the meeting from 00:17:02 onwards for approximately 12 minutes.  

Belinda, could you please let us know the messages being delivered through the project? I am particularly interested in knowing if the messaging focuses on individual and/or community action.



Kind regards
paresh

Dear Chaiwe:

I am very excited about this initiative, dance is a powerfull art to express what we want to share. I would like to share experiences from Bolivia, in which dance was also used on water issues. A first experience of a professional contemporary dance group (Atempo Danza, link to the page here ) who, motivated by the "Water War" in Cochabamba Bolivia, created a choreography that was presented in various dance events but also in WASH, including the World Water Forum in Mexico in 2006.  



On the other hand, a work experience with young people from schools has been taking place since 2009, promoted by the Lanzarte project, supported by Solidar Suiza/AOS. Danzur is a group of young people from schools in the southern zone of Cochabamba Bolivia (a low-income area with poor access to water), dedicated to Art and social transformation through Dance, creating works from their own experiences. We are interested in sharing one of their works that was dedicated to the problems of access to water in their neighborhoods, where they have to buy water from cisterns, line up to recieve water, travel distances to bring water to their homes, and endless problems that were expressed in the choreography they put together: “My neighborhood…. my Water” (2015). The play was performed in many schools and other scenarios. We share it in the following link .



If you have any record of your experience in Zambia we would very much like you to share it, so we can show it to the young people of the Danzur group who would be very happy to see it.

Kind regards

WATERPROOF PROJECT💧 'Dance4WASH Zambia' KICK-OFF

The Waterproof project - Dance4WASH has kicked off in Zambia and is also being implemented in other sub-saharan countries including Malawi, Uganda, South Africa among others.

The project which received support from  Viva con Agua  is set to be implemented in five selected schools across Lusaka by the  Lusaka Water Security Initiative  and Partners. The WaterProof Project aims to improve access to WASH information through dance, with the main focus being hand washing.

The project has received support from stakeholders including the Ministry of Education in Zambia and the Lusaka District Health Office. Massive support from LuWSI Partners has been received as well. Some of the supporting LuWSI Partners on the project are  CaDev_Capacity Development , Lusaka City Council,  GIZ Zambia ,  WaterAid  Zambia and the Centre for Water, Sanitation and Rehabilitation ( WASARec ).

The activation campaigns will take place between the 5th to the 23rd of June, 2023.

Follow Dance4WASH Zambia on Facebook here:  lnkd.in/d_3TwtQ9  and Dance4WASHZambia on Tic tok to watch some cool dance moves and join the challenge.