Campus-Community Partnership for One Health: Harnessing a Semi-Urban Community’s Participatory History to Address WASH needs in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract This One Health case highlights a community-based initiative implemented by Babcock University Department of Public Health (BU-DPH), to provide access to water through campus-community collaboration. BU-DPH engaged the semi-urban community by (1) meeting with local leaders to discuss the purpose of the project and obtaining necessary permissions, (2) developing and conducting a community survey to identify the felt health needs of the people, (3) analysing the data to prioritize the top needs, (4) presenting and discussing the data with community leaders and campus authorities, (5) deflating the expectation of the community leaders that BU-DPH should address the identified need, (6) developing an inventory of their past community self-help development initiatives and achievements to elicit commitment and motivation to address the identified water need by the people, with the people, and for the people, and (7) inviting BU to contribute to the expectation of the people by installing water pipes outside the campus walls to complement the efforts of the community leaders to reduce the risk of the transmission of water-related diseases in the spirit of campus-community partnership for One Health. The initiative led to the construction of four deep wells using resources from the community, supported with additional water pumps from BU and continued education on ways and means of reducing zoonotic waterborne diseases. For sustainability, the community’s development committee (DC) provided oversight. This case illustrates how a campus-community approach implemented systematically resonated the underlying participatory history/philosophy of a community to address identified One Health need with multiplier benefits at the individual, community, and institutional levels of influence. Information © The Author 2025