Health walks

Article derived from "A Community Guide to Environmental Health ":

During a health walk, people take a closer look at their community. They try to find things that may be causing health problems, such as an unsafe water source, a polluting business, or a lack of sanitation. When a health walk is done as a group, people share with each other the different things they know about problems. Then they can work together on possible solutions. The more people involved, the better.

Drawing activities: Making and looking at drawings can help people see solutions to problems that they might not see otherwise. Drawings can be used to start guided discussions, and drawing can be a way for people who cannot read or write well to express themselves and to participate in group leadership. Some communities work together to paint pictures on the walls of buildings (murals) that express their problems and hopes for a better, healthier future.

Community Survey: Community surveys are an organized way to gather information. They can be used to find out what problems people have, to consider similarities and differences in what people think or believe, or to measure the support for different plans or actions in the community. In a survey, the same questions are asked in the same way to all of the people participating. Surveys can be done in homes, workplaces, schools, places of worship, other gathering places, or even over the telephone or by post. Surveys allow people to share their thoughts privately, without having to come to meetings or other public events. They can be a way for people who might be afraid, or who are not allowed to participate in the community decision making process, to have their concerns and ideas considered.

Theater Theater is a way to explore problems and propose solutions while entertaining and having fun. People can act out their own experiences and imagine the experiences of others. Some issues and conflicts may be easier to consider if they are portrayed in another time and place. A sociodrama allows people to act out a problem and demonstrate some of its causes and effects. Sociodramas can bring up lots of emotions. Some community organizers like to end by having people sing a song together or do some other ‘cooperation’ activity. Interactive theater is a kind of sociodrama in which everyone both watches and participates. Any person in the audience can tell the actors to stop, and then can take the place of an actor and act out a different solution to the problem. This is especially helpful in situations where people take turns playing the role of the person who has little or no power. A role play does not require as much preparation as a sociodrama, and can help explain different points of view or resolve conflicts. People act out different roles in real-life situations to show what they would do. You can discuss and repeat a role play to understand why people behave a certain way. Changing the way people in power act is easy on the stage, but very difficult in real life. Using a drama to practice how we interact with people who have power over us helps people prepare different ways to respond to power in real life. A puppet show uses puppets instead of people to act out the story of a community conflict. They make people laugh, and can help them see things in ways they are not used to. Some people find it easier to talk through puppets than to act on a stage. Any story can be turned into a sociodrama as long as it has characters and a problem to be worked out.