Communitisation and its ability to encourage safe sex practices among sex workers in India

In an effort to better understand the effectiveness of communitisation, a recently introduced process of shifting social service power from government systems to the benefiting communities, the Sonagachi Project was able to collect questionnaire responses from 482 sex workers as well as conduct physical examinations with participants. The data collected represented daily activities in the lives of sex workers as well as assessing their participation in various processes of communitisation such as community run health services, banking and educational services. After analyzing the responses there is a strong statistical relationship between participation in community organizing, advocacy, group learning and education, considered communitisation activities, and lower instances of STI's along with higher rates of condom use.