Redesigning an existing mercury exposure reduction project in small-scale gold mining communities

One downside of southeastern Senegal's gold rush is community and miner exposure to mercury, which is utilized to separate the gold from the rock in which it is found. Last year, a team of Peace Corps Volunteers were given a pre-packaged educational program to implement and a technology called a pipe retort to extend that would trap the mercury emissions. Through extensive program evaluation, it was found that while awareness of the dangers of mercury had increased but that uptake of the retort technology had been low. Currently, the team of volunteers is implementing a variety of HCD methods in order to work with community members and health workers to enhance the project structure and redesign the retort technology to increase project effectiveness and better address the issue of how to reduce community exposure to the world's most powerful neurotoxin.
http://www.hcdconnect.org/stories/revamping-an-existing-mercury-exposure-reduction-project-using-community-driven-discovery/