Using Appreciative Inquiry, Community Theatre and Collaborative Engagement to Improve Environmental Sanitation Habits of People in Ibarapa, Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The poor state of environmental sanitation in Ibarapa East Local Government area of Oyo State was worrisome.  A three-phase intervention measures adopted for this study were appreciative inquiry questionnaire, awareness creation with community theatre and collaborative engagements with a review of the intervention measures that lasted for six months. Simple percentages and t-test statistics were used to analyse the questionnaire items. The post-field intervention results on the effect of the community theatre and collaborative intervention measures on environmental sanitation habits proved significant with t(2.145)  =  5.276, P<0.05 and t(2.145)=4.031, P<0.05 respectively. It was therefore recommended that while appreciative inquiry is desirable to re-awaken peoples’ sense of situation analysis on environmental sanitation, the community theatre is needed to fire their imagination and thought in the right direction while collaborative engagements using participant models would motivate the people into action.