Our SABC Approach : we go beyond building infrastructure

At One Drop, we are always ready to go above and beyond to achieve true long-term sustainability. We believe in the combined power of providing access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, promoting healthy behaviours, and encouraging capital supporting income-generating activities and market-based solutions.
Access; Behaviour change; Capital. These make up our A•B•C for Sustainability^TM model. The combined power of these three components makes our projects sustainable by creating an enabling environment for positive change and helping communities reach their full potential.

Transformational change in how water, sanitation, and hygiene services are provided around the world requires more than just building infrastructure. People and communities must adopt and maintain healthy behaviours for the long term. One Drop’s unique Social Art for Behaviour Change^TM (SABC) approach draws upon evidence from a range of disciplines — including behavioural economics, neurosciences, and socially engaged arts — to create interactive spaces where community participants work alongside artists to inspire, activate, and sustain behaviour change. The process starts with identifying key behavioural determinants, as well as cultural and artistic references, to design interventions that are deeply embedded within local realities and needs. The idea behind the approach is to put people and emotions first as a means of tackling hygiene and sanitation-related behaviours such as handwashing with water and soap or properly maintaining a latrine.
Social arts are an effective vehicle to co-create emotionally captivating interventions by, with, and for individuals and communities. Throughout the social art process, we train, build, and strengthen the capacity of local critical change agents to become champions of positive behaviours in their own communities. The SABC approach has proved to increase stakeholders’ sense of involvement, ownership, and empowerment to drive long-term change. With only a decade left to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, it is increasingly clear that behaviour change is the missing link required to make the difference. One Drop’s SABC approach offers creative and systemic solutions that ensure sustainable access to safe water and sanitation for the world’s most vulnerable communities.