Promoting SODIS a pro-poor
point-of-use water treatment
technology in peri-urban
Zimbabwe
Sharon Murinda
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
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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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Solar water disinfection: SODIS
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SODIS is…
 … a simple household water treatment system
 … point-of-use water disinfection
 … affordable
 … environmentally sustainable
 … socially sustainable
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SODIS Dissemination
 Community Meetings
 Bottle Center
 Promotion
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Bottle center
 Sources for
bottles located (bottle collectors and hotels), connection arranged
between them
 With a Token, bottle was redeemed for half-price
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Promotion
Promoters(N=43)
These are respected local people, leaders and
influential people from the community
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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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Household visits by promoters
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Flyers used by Promoters
Persuasion
to do and
to talk with
pass-ontask
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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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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 =
25 800 household visits
– 10 000+ 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.
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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
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Source of information for SODIS
Information event/community meetings(15.8%)
Friend/neighbour (4.3%)
Interviewer/enumerator (6.4% )
Promoter (38%)
Bottle centre (20%)
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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)
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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
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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
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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
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Conclusion
 With more of promotion activities from the bottle
center and the promoters, SODIS has a high potential
of being adopted even more
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Thank you! www.sodis.ch or sharon@iwsd.co.zw
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