We recently published a blog post about Khulisa’s experience conducting a huge health survey of 7,500 households in Zambia. Conducting an in-person survey of this scale, in the privacy of respondents’ homes – rather than at service delivery points, where the majority of our in-person surveys take place – taught us a number of valuable lessons. This week’s lesson is about working with local communities.
The Khulisa team conducted this household survey in 30 districts across all 10 provinces in Zambia, covering many of the country’s most rural, hard-to-reach areas. The survey questions were intimate and health-related, requiring a lot of engagement and buy-in from families and communities. Therefore, it was important to work closely with the chief/leader of each community and to listen to what those leaders had to say.
In some cases, Khulisa discovered it was necessary to offer small honorary payments or gifts to communities as a show of courtesy or good faith. Although these gifts weren’t something Khulisa planned in the initial stages of the project, we realized it was important to work with the local communities on their own terms.
To learn more about this unique household survey and our lessons learned, read the full blog post.