Art: the universal and borderless language 

That connects and transforms communities from the heart and emotions.

Murals

Videos

Songs

Theater

Puppets

Books

Social Art makes a difference in
Lazos de Agua Program

Through Social Art, communities are the protagonists of change, participating from the design stage in the co-creation of interventions to have a better quality of life, through access to Water, Sanitation and/or Hygiene (WASH).

Social Art for sustainable innovation - Lazos de Agua Program

How does the Social Art for Behaviour Change™ work? (SABC):

In the creative process, participants are more than beneficiaries and become co-creators of solutions and results, facilitating greater ownership of the project and the empowerment of both, individuals and communities.

Creativity linked to empowerment allows us to rewrite reality and puts a social situation into perspective through an artistic outlet. 

Thus, we question our lives, our actions and our habits; we look at ourselves from another angle and reflect on who we are, our culture, our knowledge and more important, from our feelings to take action on what needs to change.

Social Art for sustainable innovation - Lazos de Agua Program
Social Art for sustainable innovation - Lazos de Agua Program
Social Art for sustainable innovation - Lazos de Agua Program
Social Art for sustainable innovation - Lazos de Agua Program

The SABCTM approach as well as the A·B·C for SustainabilityTM model have been developed by the One Drop Foundation, founding and strategic implementing partner of the Lazos de Agua Program.

Isabelle Viens, expert in Social Art for Behavioral Change - sustainable innovation
"In the various projects in which Lazos de Agua collaborates, we have the opportunity to witness very human and sincere experiences. The encounters, those moments when people sit together to live the experience, allowing, for example, women participants of a puppet workshop in Mexico, to talk about their dreams as mothers, their dreams as women. They engage in artistic creation by proposing solutions to their community's problems. This process reveals the great creative capacity generated by the respectful space of dialogue and art. We have moved from awareness to mobilization!"
Isabelle Viens, expert in Social Art for Behavioural Change for Lazos de Agua | One Drop Foundation

Social Art is key to making WASH's initiatives sustainable

Art is the key

In a creative and participatory way, Social Art has linked the efforts and objectives of all the components of Lazos de Agua:

  • We have succeeded in getting more people to practice specific healthy habits, based on their relationship between the heart, the brain, emotion and reason.

Experiments by the American researchers John and Béatrice Lacey have shown that the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain does to the heart. This provides a direct link between feeling and knowing and shows what art can do to change behavior in a lasting way.

Results of the implementation of Social Art in Lazos de Agua Program from the beginning of implementation to its mid-term:

13% increase in the practice of handwashing with soap and water at important moments

13% increase

in the practice of handwashing with soap and water at important moments

34% increase in proper payment of water service fees

34% increase

in proper payment of water service fees

9% increase in the treatment of drinking water in the home

9% increase

in the treatment of drinking water in the home

12% increase in the safe storage of drinking water at home

12% increase

in the safe storage of drinking water at home

The SABC approach
INSPIRES, ACTIVATES and SUPPORTS.

When emotion is mobilized, there are more motivators to act from feeling, knowledge and reason. Art stimulates this communication between the heart and the brain to finally have a positive impact on people's quality of life.

Learn more about SABC approach

Lazos de Agua Program Social Art Projects:

Sustainable innovation

Muralazos: Visual art that generates behavioural changes in communities.

Muralazos is a SABC intervention that reflects the commitment of communities in the face of water, sanitation and/or hygiene challenges they experience in homes, schools, localities and municipalities.

Social Art for sustainable innovation - Lazos de Agua Program

Muralazos is also a tool you can use in your community to perform activities that inspire, stimulate, mobilize, and sustain the practice of a behavior.

Who can use these tools?

  • Teachers
  • Mothers leaders
  • Water committee members 
  • Key actors
  • Executing partners
  • Social artists

The process of these murals allows all designs to be unique and original. Each school and community vibrates through its mosaic mural!

Muralazos is currently present in all our Lazos de Agua Program projects.
Know more about MuraLazos

Videos, Short Films and Documentaries

Through short films and video clips where people from the communities participate, we create audiovisual pieces with humor and local culture to promote behavioral changes and actions related to WASH. These creations are improving the quality of life of entire families and communities.

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Cháguate!

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Videoclip “Up to date”, Convidarte, Colombia

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Theater play video: ¡Ay, Carmela!

Discover our videos

Songs

With the participation of local artists, songs have been created to encourage behaviors such as: hand washing, proper water storage and payment of drinking water service fees.

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Videoclip Taj, Taj, Taj, Drops fall at night

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Song “With Water and Soap”

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Videoclip “Up to date”, Convidarte, Colombia

Listen our songs

Theater

Through theatrical plays, the treatment and storage of water for household drinking water and the payment of fees, which benefit the lives of communities, are addressed.

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Theater play video: ¡Ay, Carmela!

Watch more theater plays

Puppets

Puppets are one of the representative elements of SABC interventions. 

There, stories related to water and local culture are created, mixing aspects of the behaviour that each community is expected to adopt.

Participants build puppets from scratch, assigning them a personality, specifying physical features and making their clothes. At the end, the community receives a theater and the audio track of the play that allows any participant to play several roles, without the risk of forgetting the script.

Among the commitments assumed by the participants are to keep and take care of the puppets, as well as to carry out a certain number of replicas, or performances of the play, which are usually presented at local festivities or school events.

Social Art

Watch more puppets plays

E-Books

Social Art for Behavior Change™

Book Kumatz, the river snake

Read more Books (only in Spanish for now)
Sharing during a theater performance, the creation of a mural, the production of a short film or any other social art experience, and discussing about it, allows for bonding and teamwork to achieve common goals.

The SABC in Lazos de Agua generates a sense of belonging and strengthens the organizational capacities of a community.

Social Art is the result of meaning, purpose, local aesthetics and culture together.

Know more about our model and approach
One Drop

Do you want to know in depth the origin of this approach and its relationship with Cirque du Soleil? 

Find out more about the One Drop Foundation's work in the rest of the world.

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