The purpose of IEC activities is to raise the awareness of the local people regarding hygiene, drinking water, health, drainage and environment. The activities also aim to mobilize the people and get them involved in the project, promoting an active, participatory approach for a voluntary and sustainable change in the health habits of the people. IEC activities are organized on three pillars:

• Promoting use of clean drinking water and encouraging the highest possible number of connections to the future water supply network
• Incentives to improve individual habits
• Upgrading personal and community hygiene practices

In order to raise awareness among the greatest number of villagers, EAST proposed the establishment of an IEC committee, recruiting local facilitators to care for awareness-raising initiatives and organizing public information meetings with the village leaders and meetings with mass organizations (Women’s League, Youth Federation, Farmers’ Union, Red Cross, Elderly Persons’ Union, Veterans’ Union and Fatherland Front). The training of facilitators aims to provide them with the necessary academic knowledge in terms of drinking water, hygiene, health and environmental protection. It also provides an opportunity to present instructional techniques for coaching and raising awareness, as well as to explain the role of facilitators and mass organizations. IEC activities officially got underway on September 1, 2007. After 10 months of activities, 25 facilitators made 4,370 visits to over 1,900 households throughout the commune.

An important component of IEC activities is dedicated to activities in the Kieu Ky primary school that has an enrolment of nearly 700 pupils. This component involves getting children to adopt good hygiene practices through courses in health. The 10 teachers selected were invited to attend the training session for IEC facilitators from August 27-30, 2007. These 10 teachers went on to train seven of their colleagues. Thus, 17 schoolteachers were put in charge of teaching health in their respective classes. A total of 109 sessions of 30 to 45 minutes were conducted by the teachers throughout 2007-2008 year.