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Using Visual Methods in WASH

Dear friends and colleagues,

We hope to spark your interest in visual methods! We are featuring a new participatory video research project facilitated by SLH and SNV Indonesia .

Plus we are sharing excellent resources on the use of PhotoVoice for inclusion in WASH projects.

If these are useful to your work, we'd love to know. Any comments or feedback are welcome.

Many good wishes,
The Sanitation Learning Hub team

Participatory video: Sanitation issues for female-headed households

Eight women from female-headed households in Tasikmalaya, Indonesia, talk about the challenges they face and ideas for solutions with a focus on sanitation, health and livelihoods.

This video is an output from a participatory video research project started in June 2022 – and has been created by the women themselves, with the support of facilitators.

Research shows that female-headed households can get left behind in programming and policy. So the project aims to creatively encourage women from female-headed households to explore key issues affecting them and their families’ lives, to ensure their needs and long-term interests are better met.

The video was screened with local government officials in Tasikmalaya on June 15th 2022, followed by a discussion between the women and the officials. Over the next 6 months it will be screened at events with local communities and decision-makers to generate dialogue, deepen research and motivate informed action.

(Subtitles available in English, Bahasa and Sundanese).

Watch the video on YouTube

Exploring WASH taboos with PhotoVoice

A close-up image of a foot with a fly crawling on it

Check out these excellent resources from Amita Bhakta, Jane Wilbur and colleagues, covering often taboo issues such as incontinence, disability and perimenopause:

PhotoVoice with pastoralist women

Two children and a woman push a wheeled vehicle through a plain.

Read the 3-part blog series by Christine Fostvedt-Mills and colleagues, exploring PhotoVoice for WASH and nutrition in the Afar region, Ethiopia:

Why use visual methods?
Like other qualitative research methods, visual methods generate subjective knowledge from within a particular situation, so a greater understanding is gained into how people experience, interpret and respond to their realities.

Visual methods also enable participants to show as well as tell, and can reveal the contextual, emotional and dynamic aspects easily missed by other methods. They also give people who have challenges writing or speaking alternative means to communicate.

Do you find our resources and activities useful for your work?

Reply to this email and let us know – we’d love to hear from you.