Healers to spread the word on health and hygiene

Abstract

Experience has shown that hardware, i.e. the installation of physical sanitation infrastructure, does not necessarily improve community health unless complemented by comprehensive health and hygiene education. If households do not adopt improved hygiene practices, improving their access to safe sanitation will not make much of a difference to their health and well-being. In South African communities, people’s day-to-day practices and behaviours related to health are often influenced by traditional health practitioners. Considered the custodians of communities’ culture and indigenous knowledge they more often than not hold a high position of trust and status among the people they serve. Traditional health practitioners are characterised by modes of healing that include a more or less shared herbal pharmacopoeia, and distinctive practices of divination and possession by ancestral spirits. Indigenous to South Africa in this category are sangomas, inyangas, herbalists, traditional surgeons and faith healers.

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