Supporting India's national-level social and behaviour change campaign on sanitation through entertainment education
Summary:
Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything :MKBKSH) is a transmedia SBCC programme of Population Foundation of India (PFI), a non-profit organisation promoting the health and rights of marginalised groups, especially women. One of India's biggest development challenges is ensuring sanitation and hygiene for its population to avert disease, deaths and malnutrition due to unhygienic conditions and practices. While the government has dealt with infrastructure solutions, social norms associated with toilets are a barrier to ending unsanitary practices such as open defecation. People, especially in rural areas, consider toilets as unclean' and therefore undesirable to have within the household. A 2017 World Bank Study estimated that around 40% of people who have toilets in their houses did not use them. As a result, by WHO estimates of 2016 India accounted for 59% of open defecation in the world, and 90 percent in South Asia. Realising the importance of changing social norms, the Government of India's Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission emphasised on behaviour change to encourage sustainable shifts in sanitation practices. Season 3 of PFI's edutainment show Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (MKBKSH) supports the Swachh Bharat campaign, with the protagonist Dr. Sneha motivating people of her village to adopt safe sanitation practices. The programme used entertaining content in different formats and across multiple platforms, and engagement strategies to achieve positive shifts in attitudes over a short period.
Background/Objectives:
In defining India's pathway to freedom, Mahatma Gandhi had declared sanitation is more important than political independence'. Gandhi knew that regressive practices related to cleanliness and social segregation would hobble the new nation's progress and fail to deliver true freedom. Apart from social justice, poor sanitation also has an economic impact of approximately USD 38.5 billion every year as per government estimates. Earlier interventions focusing on infrastructure have been unsuccessful, as merely building toilets does not make people use them. Taking cue from Gandhi's social transformation movement, the Clean India Mission used SBCC to demonstrate positive sanitation practices within communities.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (MKBKSH) used Entertainment Education (EE) to overcome the taboo and misconceptions around the use and maintenance of toilets and make audiences understand, accept and imbibe positive behaviours without feeling challenged or tutored. The central pillar of the initiative was the TV show broadcast over Doordarshan, India's public broadcaster. Extensions of the show included a dedicated Interactive Voice Response platform where viewers could participate in weekly quizzes, leave feedback and hear more information on the issue. The social media platforms, especially WhatsApp, were used extensively to send out short videos and sharable content such as a parody on sanitation based on a popular Hindi film song. To make the messaging on sanitation entertaining, sticky and interesting enough to trigger conversations, catchy phrases denoting positive behaviours were woven into the script as markers'. These markers were further promoted through targeted campaigns on IVRS and social media.
Results/Lessons Learned:
The 26 episodes on sanitation got cumulative viewership of 9.5 million from January to April 2019, and an average of about one million viewers per episode. It also got more than 7.5 million views on YouTube and Facebook. The overarching campaign hashtag on social media #SwachhtaElaan reached more than four million through the social media platforms of MKBKSH, with engagement by 60,000 users. The song on sanitation itself reached over 6 million viewers through social media. Callers engaged actively with the content through the IVRS. The platform received over 200,000 calls while the show was on air, and more than 27,000 unique listeners heard and contributed to the sanitation messages on the IVRS, with an equal share by women and men. The use of humour, entertainment and repeating markers' through the TV show as well as its transmedia extensions helped in reinforcing positive behaviours in a non-threatening manner.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
When the show was being scripted, the creative and research teams struggled to accommodate messages on sanitation in an engaging storyline that people would be willing to watch and share. A rigorous formative research using the positive deviance approach, helped identify solutions that were moulded into entertaining content viewers could easily relate to. In addition, the TV show was reinforced through sustained transmedia campaigns. Knowing that people like to demonstrate positive behaviours online, the programme recognised and celebrated community champions through social media. This improved the spreadability of content, especially through widely used low-cost platforms such as WhatsApp.
Abstract submitted by:
Urvashi Mitra - Population Foundation of India (PFI)
Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything :MKBKSH) is a transmedia SBCC programme of Population Foundation of India (PFI), a non-profit organisation promoting the health and rights of marginalised groups, especially women. One of India's biggest development challenges is ensuring sanitation and hygiene for its population to avert disease, deaths and malnutrition due to unhygienic conditions and practices. While the government has dealt with infrastructure solutions, social norms associated with toilets are a barrier to ending unsanitary practices such as open defecation. People, especially in rural areas, consider toilets as unclean' and therefore undesirable to have within the household. A 2017 World Bank Study estimated that around 40% of people who have toilets in their houses did not use them. As a result, by WHO estimates of 2016 India accounted for 59% of open defecation in the world, and 90 percent in South Asia. Realising the importance of changing social norms, the Government of India's Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission emphasised on behaviour change to encourage sustainable shifts in sanitation practices. Season 3 of PFI's edutainment show Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (MKBKSH) supports the Swachh Bharat campaign, with the protagonist Dr. Sneha motivating people of her village to adopt safe sanitation practices. The programme used entertaining content in different formats and across multiple platforms, and engagement strategies to achieve positive shifts in attitudes over a short period.
Background/Objectives:
In defining India's pathway to freedom, Mahatma Gandhi had declared sanitation is more important than political independence'. Gandhi knew that regressive practices related to cleanliness and social segregation would hobble the new nation's progress and fail to deliver true freedom. Apart from social justice, poor sanitation also has an economic impact of approximately USD 38.5 billion every year as per government estimates. Earlier interventions focusing on infrastructure have been unsuccessful, as merely building toilets does not make people use them. Taking cue from Gandhi's social transformation movement, the Clean India Mission used SBCC to demonstrate positive sanitation practices within communities.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (MKBKSH) used Entertainment Education (EE) to overcome the taboo and misconceptions around the use and maintenance of toilets and make audiences understand, accept and imbibe positive behaviours without feeling challenged or tutored. The central pillar of the initiative was the TV show broadcast over Doordarshan, India's public broadcaster. Extensions of the show included a dedicated Interactive Voice Response platform where viewers could participate in weekly quizzes, leave feedback and hear more information on the issue. The social media platforms, especially WhatsApp, were used extensively to send out short videos and sharable content such as a parody on sanitation based on a popular Hindi film song. To make the messaging on sanitation entertaining, sticky and interesting enough to trigger conversations, catchy phrases denoting positive behaviours were woven into the script as markers'. These markers were further promoted through targeted campaigns on IVRS and social media.
Results/Lessons Learned:
The 26 episodes on sanitation got cumulative viewership of 9.5 million from January to April 2019, and an average of about one million viewers per episode. It also got more than 7.5 million views on YouTube and Facebook. The overarching campaign hashtag on social media #SwachhtaElaan reached more than four million through the social media platforms of MKBKSH, with engagement by 60,000 users. The song on sanitation itself reached over 6 million viewers through social media. Callers engaged actively with the content through the IVRS. The platform received over 200,000 calls while the show was on air, and more than 27,000 unique listeners heard and contributed to the sanitation messages on the IVRS, with an equal share by women and men. The use of humour, entertainment and repeating markers' through the TV show as well as its transmedia extensions helped in reinforcing positive behaviours in a non-threatening manner.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
When the show was being scripted, the creative and research teams struggled to accommodate messages on sanitation in an engaging storyline that people would be willing to watch and share. A rigorous formative research using the positive deviance approach, helped identify solutions that were moulded into entertaining content viewers could easily relate to. In addition, the TV show was reinforced through sustained transmedia campaigns. Knowing that people like to demonstrate positive behaviours online, the programme recognised and celebrated community champions through social media. This improved the spreadability of content, especially through widely used low-cost platforms such as WhatsApp.
Abstract submitted by:
Urvashi Mitra - Population Foundation of India (PFI)
Source
Approved abstract for the postponed 2020 SBCC Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. Provided by the International Steering Committee for the Summit. Image credit: MKBKSH via Twitter