Co-creating an intersectional water justice toolkit and documentary in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

Water justice is the equitable, reliable, and safe access to clean water and sanitation and meaningful community inclusion in water governance, which is constrained by multiple social inequities. Financial (housing) and social inequities such as gender inequitable norms and gender-based violence, land insecurity, racial discrimination, and sexuality diversity (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [LGBTQ+]) exclusion perpetuate unequal access to water and sanitation for historically marginalized populations. This highlights the need for an intersectional approach to building alliances to advance water justice across diverse social movements. In Cape Town, South Africa, legacies of colonialism and apartheid continue to shape spatial and infrastructural inequalities, especially in backyards. In response, we co-developed the “Water Justice Alliance-Building Toolkit” through a community-engaged process with activists from five intersecting movements: water justice, women’s rights, housing rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and racial justice. The participatory co-production process involved filmed walk-along interviews, focus groups, arts-based workshops, and community dialogue, culminating in modular tools designed to support intersectional education, alliance-building, and advocacy. In this article, we describe the toolkit’s development, its components, and an accompanying documentary, “Its Ebbs and Flows,” which centers lived experiences of water injustice through visuals and multilingual narration. Toolkit activities, including discussion guides, artmaking, song-making, and role-play, facilitate inclusive dialogue. We conclude with implications for practice and policy, highlighting how participatory, arts-based approaches can foster more responsive health promotion strategies. By validating community knowledge and creative expression, this toolkit expands on whose expertise counts to guide a just transition and offers replicable templates for promoting health equity in climate-vulnerable settings.