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Zenu Community To Benefit From Water Project

02.06.2011 LISTEN
By Rose Hayford - Daily Graphic

The people of Zenu, a peri-urban community in the Tema metropolis, are to benefit from a $65,000 water project.

When completed, the project will supply 65,000 litres of water to that community.

The project is being undertaken by Water Health Ghana, with its mother organisation in the United States of America, which started operations in Ghana in 2007, with the first project located at Afuman in the Ga West District in the Greater Accra Region.

Similar facilities are operating at Pokuase, Obeye, Oduman, Amasaman, among others, while feasibility studies are being undertaken in areas of the Eastern and Volta regions as the organisation expands its operations.

The project at Zenu, which is about to take off, will be linked to a dam at Zenu from where water will be sourced. It is expected to take three months to be completed to serve the people of Zenu and its environs.

Addressing a forum of representatives of various organised groups, chiefs and tribal heads of the community, the Education and Community Programmes Co-ordinator of Water Health, Mrs Victoria Norgbey, said Ghana Water would train local volunteers to educate the people on how to safely store water.

She explained that Water Health had, as its criterion, the need to identify a perennial water surface in the area of operation to ensure that there was constant water to be treated for the people.

She stated that the technology used in producing the treated water was expensive and called for vigilance on the dam.

She said the process of treatment included the use of ultra violet rays (UVR) technology, before finally adding chlorine.

Mrs Norgbey noted that because of the high cost of the technology, Water Health had sought partnership to enable it to protect the water centre, adding that sometimes Water Health collected a token from the beneficiaries to take care of some of the costs involved.

In line with that, she said, Water Health was partnering Guinness Ghana to provide the project for the people of Zenu at 70 per cent and 30 per cent funding, respectively.

She cautioned the people to institute measures to keep the dam site clean and be committed to preserving the water as a means of reducing the cost involved in the treatment.

Mrs Norgbey disclosed that the project at Manhea and Nsakina, also in the Ga West District, contributed to the eradication of water-borne diseases, including buruli ulcer.

She said Water Health evaluated the project over a period of time, after installing it, to ensure that known water-borne diseases in the particular area were eliminated.

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