Don’t forget the plumber: research in remote Australian Aboriginal communities
With all the plumbing work happening in HH projects in Nepal, Bangladesh, South Africa and most recently in Singapore and the important connections made between plumbing and health, what better time to go way, way back to a small but important article written in the late 1990s.
Written by a medical doctor and an environmental health/anthropologist, the article reminds us of the complex links between any sort of development work and the community involved. It reminds us all of how we need to fit into existing community life and issues and make no assumptions about the importance of our ‘new and exciting’ project.
The ideas of making some immediate change, involving local people not in meetings but in action and finding smart ways of reporting back to the local community are all covered in a careful and considered way.
Thanks to the ANZ Journal of Public Health 1997 Volume 21 No.1
