Seven steps to community planning for the prevention of diarrhoeal disease

This step is carried out after the community has implemented its plan, perhaps six months or one year after the start of the programme.

The participatory evaluation should involve as many people as possible from the community as well as other community workers, officials, and perhaps representatives of neighbouring communities. This step should be fun and a celebration of the group's achievements. During the evaluation the group will identify:

 

- how much has been done in the community
- how much of the plan still needs to be done
- what has been successful
- any problems or difficulties encountered
- any corrective action that is needed.

The evaluation can be done in many different ways, for example:

 

- the group might carry out some evaluation activities itself and share the results with the wider community by displaying the materials where they can be seen by all

- the group might decide to involve the wider community in its evaluation activities; for instance, people could be invited to take part in a community event where everyone votes during a pocket chart activity

- or the group could combine the above activities by carrying out some specific evaluation activities separately, as well as organizing a community evaluation activity, such as presentation of a socio-drama about the programme to a wider group.

The group may therefore need to have planning meetings of its own to organize the evaluation or event for a wider group.

Your role is to help the group:

 

- work out what it wants to do to evaluate its progress
- work out how it wants to involve a wider selection of community members
- work out how to make the evaluation event enjoyable and satisfying for everyone.

It is important that the group decides what it wants to do. So instead of giving detailed guidance, a list of suggestions for different types of participatory evaluation activities follows. If the group has trouble deciding what to do for its evaluation activity, you could facilitate a discussion using some of these suggestions. Choose only those suggestions for the discussion which you think are suitable for the group. Consider the group's level of reading and writing ability, the different kinds of personalities and skills of group members, and how they work together as a team.

Try to encourage the group to prepare a socio-drama if the group is unwilling to try any of the other suggestions for evaluation activities. Community workers involved in PHAST have reported that this activity is usually very well received by the rest of the community and is a lot of fun to prepare.