The Kenya Integrated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (KIWASH), with its primary goal being to improve the

lives and health of Kenyan citizens in nine counties through the development and management of

sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene services. These combined efforts support the implementation of

USAID's Water and Development Strategy in Kenya.

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Exp Social Marketing has been engaged as a strategic communications partner under Output 1: Market-

Based WASH Service Delivery Models Scaled Up, on sustainable improvements to clean water and

sanitation services for Kenyan households.

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Project Objectives:

1. Improved access to WASH services and improved hygiene for more than 1,000,000 people

2. Improved access to nutrition services

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Target Audience:

1. Women of reproductive age as the primary target since they are the key custodians of WASH behaviors at household level.

2. Men as a secondary target as the decision makers at both the household and community levels

3. Youth and children were targeted for their influence on parents and communities leveraging on pestering power.

4. Stakeholder groups such as community gatekeepers, traditional leaders, religious leaders, political leaders, county and sub county officials to catalyze change within the target communities.

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Interventions:

Exp's applied the Sixth Sense ™ Tool in designing the KIWASH Campaign.

The KIWASH marketing strategy was based on evidence and insights collected through a formative

assessment. The KIWASH BCC strategy focused on safe water, latrine use and hand washing, key

components to hygiene behaviors.

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Baseline - Formative Assessment:

A successful project is built on evidence from relative community /individual behaviour, which provided the basis of the communication strategy through three techniques

1. Community Discussions

2. “DAY IN THE LIFE” Diary¹ Exp BCO's gathered the data which was analyzed and used to informs the strategy development

3. Application of the sixth Sense Intervention™ process

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Activity 1: Selection of Behavior Change Observers (BCO's)

To conduct the immersions, Exp Social Marketing recruited Behaviour Change Communication Observers

whose selection criteria was to be educated to tertiary level i.e. (college students and graduate) the

BCO's were trained on formative assessment techniques, such as ETL, observation and document of

target audience's actions, feelings or thoughts, through the day - Experiencing a day in the life from start

to finish, discussing key behaviours, recording what the respondent said they did and observing the

actual behavior of the respondents.

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Activity 2: Formative Assessment

Exp's formative research targeted all households in rural and semi-urban areas within the four clusters.

All household members were subjected to the immersion process, however adult members of the

households were relied on for key information.

The study was divided in two:

A: Household immersions:

Five households were selected in every County to host the BCO's for at

least 24 hours. A total of 40 households were engaged in the eight counties during the formative

assessment Sampling was employed and the selection of households for the immersion component was

based on the guidelines below:

1. Willingness to host a behavior change ambassador

2. Presence of at least one adult member of the household throughout the immersion period

3. Literacy levels of household heads. The BCO's included household heads who were either literate or

4. illiterate members.

 

B Community discussions:

Two community discussion were held in each County with adult male and

female members of the counties, these were identified using the snowball sampling technique; Gender

balance and representation of community opinion leaders was given consideration during selection of the

forum participants. The Community Discussions offered a platform to discover how groups (male and

female) think, how they feel about issues which need to address by the KIWASH project. Community

Discussions were useful in obtaining detailed information about personal and group feelings as they

provide broader range of information. 

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The Sixth Sense Intervention™ Tool

The KIWASH marketing strategy was based on evidence and insights collected through a formative

assessment. Exp's applied the Sixth Sense ™ Tool in designing the KIWASH Campaign.

The KIWASH BCC strategy focused on safe water, latrine use and hand washing, key components to

hygiene behaviors.

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Activity 3: Strategic Plan Development and Campaign Design

Based on the evidence and insights collected during the formative assessment, Exp applied the Sixth

Sense ™ Tool to develop the KIWASH a marketing strategy for each of the clusters this formed a basis for

the campaign design. The campaign strategy was based on tested maxims for successful behavior change

campaigns that address:

1. Creating an enabled environment, through conversations on WASH through IPC

2. Driving Access by linking to available sanitation marketing options.

3. Demand-Driven Behavior Change through IPC activities

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The Behaviour Change Ecosystem

Behaviour change happens in a behavioural ecosystem to enable the change and the behavioral ecosystem

consists of three key components namely environment, demand and access.

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Enabling the environment emphasised on community “ownership, participation and empowerment” in line

with program objective.

 

Creating an enabled Environment

Socio-cultural environment was a key influencer of human behaviour because behaviour thrives in an

environment that accommodates the desired new behaviour. Creating an enabled environment through

engagement and empowerment of all Stakeholders, gatekeepers and Key Opinion Formers (K.O.F.s) is

therefore a pre-requisite in the design and implementation of an effective BCC campaign.

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Driving Access

Access to approaches, tools and catalysts of change, commodities, services, and emotional support, is

critical to behavior change success. Without access to physical and emotional 'catalysts' of change,

actors are disempowered, and change would limit. Apart from physical access to WASH facilities that will

be addressed by this programme, it is important to create psychological access among the target

communities to drive good WASH behaviors. This will be driven through awareness creation and barrier

neutralization at community and individual levels. The main activities in this component involved mass,

mid mass and IPC -interpersonal communication with the target audience at various touch points.

 

Demand-Driven Behaviour Change

The behaviour change process critical in creating demand included: Awareness, Personal Relevance and

Internalization. Awareness formed the first stage of the campaign, once the target is 'aware' of the

intervention the campaign can then start to build relevance, for sustainability and success, behaviour

change it cannot be imposed on people, but should be demanded by the people.

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Implementation Strategy

Exp proposed a 360º integrated campaign in the nine target counties. The activities complemented each

other and were conducted at different connection points at households, markets and small group forums.

Through the integrated campaign we created awareness and demand for uptake of the desired

behaviour. Exp aligned the activities into three phases: Inception, Implementation and closing out

respectively. To monitor progress with the aim of achieving success, Exp designed monitoring tool to

assess awareness, uptake and impact in the nine Counties of the project. Exp organized its activities in

the following sequence:

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Phase 1- Inception

Community Entry: Involvement of the selected communities, stakeholders leading to ownership,

sustainability and probability of success, Design and layout of campaign material: Exp's created and

developed the campaign material in close collaboration with DAI, MoH and the community. Pre-testing of

brand and campaign materials: Exp conducted pre-testing of the messages and campaign materials

with the target communities and stakeholders.

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Mapping: Mapping/pre-visits was done in the target areas with help of MOH, after the stakeholder meetings

led by community teams to obtain information on the number of community units and other important

information.

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Training: Exp will conducted trainings for implementing teams at two levels:

Level 1: Training of Exp Field Coordinators. Level 2: Exp worked with MoH to recruit end line implementers

and to train the help of relevant county level.

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Phase 2-Implementation

Exp Social Marketing tested all elements live, in situ. To ensure consistency in messaging, Exp designed

activity & CHV guides/scripts to be used by end line implementers:

• IPC

  • Community forums: Small group sessions comprising of between 20-30 participants mobilized and hosted by opinion leaders who pledge support.

  • Household visits: Exp trained CHV's carried out household visits, where they checked on sanitationstatus, ownership of an improved latrine, use of safe water, consistent and correct handwashing.

• Mid mass- Market day activities: As follow on to support IPC activities Exp used edutainment carried out by a trained team on WASH communications to engage the larger community during market day, we held 12 market day activities reaching 10,000 persons across the nine Counties.

• Mass engagement: to enhance rate of recall and for sustainability Exp identified strategic walls and worked with local artists to paint wall the messages translated to the local dialect.

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Results:

Capacity building: Exp Social Marketing trained 1084 end line implementers CHV's, CHA's and PHO's on

current WASH behaviours, objectives of the KIWASH project, BCC (behaviour change communication),

ETL (Education through listening) a community engagement technique.

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Cumulative reach:

• Through IPC activities, Exp reached 332,249 people, within the nine target counties, with WASH messages over a period of two years.

• Through household activities, Exp reached 37, 972 (households) with a population of 265,789.

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Population reached with WASH messaging:

1. Water: Use of safe water includes adoption of a water treatment method, storage and consumption of treated/safe water and use of treated water to clean vegetables and fruits at household. 92% of households engaged took up water treatment using an agent (Aqua guard) and consume safe water

2. Sanitation: Adoption of basic latrine by 79% of households visited

3. Hygiene: Correct and consistent hand washing with soap and running water, 86.4% of HH visited adopted a hand washing facilities - Tippy Taps.