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Rachel Pateman presented how we have worked with the community organization El Caracol and unhoused people in Mexico City to co-create a citizen science project to understand their access to WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene). Rachel shared our methods and the lessons we learnt at each stage of the project. See her presentation.
An exercise with the community to understand their water access needs and experiences throughout the day.
Photo: SEI team
Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) services in urban areas are vital for public health. However, data on their availability, quality, and accessibility is often lacking, particularly in Latin America’s cities where many facilities are unsafe or poorly maintained. The COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico City highlighted these issues, as limited access to WASH forced unhoused individuals into open defecation. This disproportionately affected women and girls, perpetuating health inequalities.
Citizen science methods have proven to be a successful approach in increasing awareness, knowledge, engagement, and action on environmental and urban issues, and they offer new opportunities for data collection in the context of water, sanitation, and hygiene.
We partnered with community organization El Caracol and unhoused people in Mexico City to co-create a citizen science project in which WASH facilities were mapped and rated according to criteria defined by the community. In this presentation, Rachel shared our methods and the lessons we learnt at each stage of the project. In particular, how El Caracol helped us to creatively adapt our methods to ensure they were appropriate for the marginalized people we were working with.
Rachel’s talk was titled “Understanding water and sanitation challenges among Mexico City’s homeless population through co-created citizen science“. It formed part of the Co-production & Co-design session on day 3 of the 2024 Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences.
You are welcome to download Rachel’s presentation (link below). Please contact Rachel if you wish to share share this presentation through other channels, or use any of the content, thank you.
This work was led by Carla Liera and Nhilce Esquivel at SEI HQ, building on their existing work with this community, with Rachel Pateman contributing expertise in citizen science. Rachel is part of SEI York’s Citizen Science Research Group which has been designing, running, evaluating, and consulting on citizen science projects on a wide range of topics since 2008, as well as publishing impactful research on Citizen Science theory.
Project / Exploring the feasibility of citizen science to improve WASH conditions in two districts of Mexico City.
Initiative / This initiative investigates how rapidly growing cities affect residents' wellbeing and how this interacts with the overall health of city systems.
Feature / Discover five cutting-edge WASH tools for sustainable, data-driven decision-making in water and sanitation management.
Feature / Co-created citizen science empowers communities, reshaping research to reflect their real needs and priorities.
SEI brief / The Urban Toolbox has been designed to address the challenges urban stakeholders face in accessing user-friendly resources with clear guidance for usage.
Design and development by Soapbox.
