UNICEF: Protecting Ourselves from Cholera

This flipchart is a visual support for community workers, health workers, emergency workers, and in general all staff conducting face-to-face communication in response to a cholera outbreak. How to use it? The flipchart is intended as a support for animating individual or group discussions on life-saving practices. To facilitate involvement of communities for an effective response to the outbreak, this flipchart should be used to provide information and stimulate discussion, rather than to “pass messages”. An integrated communication approach The flipchart should not be used alone; effective communication strategy involves the use of a variety of channels and actors. It will be critical to integrate face-to-face discussion with other channels such as local radios, schools, mosques, churches, etc., and to associate different actors such as technical experts, community representatives and opinion leaders to animate them. In emergency context it is critical not only to stimulate discussion but also to create mechanisms for interaction between communities and service providers such as regular meetings, participation to radio broadcasts or visits by community representatives to health posts; these mechanisms need to be carefully catered for with appropriate planning and resources.