NGO organises sanitation awareness for school children at Dansoman

Accra, June 16, GNA – Madam Mimi Amy Payne, Director of the New Community Foundation, a non –governmental organisation (NGO) on environment, has urged stakeholders and individuals to join hands with the government to advocate for attitudinal and behavioural change towards the environment.

She observed that sanitation is a shared responsibility and challenged stakeholders and corporate bodies to join in the fight against filth.

Madam Payne made the observation at a function organised for school children at the Efforts school complex, Dansoman, by the Earth Replenisher Foundation (ERF), an NGO that promotes education on healthy living, to launch its 2012 campaign on environmental sanitation in schools.

She said “sicknesses and diseases do not know race, ethnic group, gender or political affiliation, because when they strike, they bring about calamities and even death. The environment we do not protect today will come back to haunt our future and future generation.”

“We create our own monsters by our attitude and behaviour towards uncleanliness, which brings about cholera and malaria infections.”

She said she believed in one step approach sanitation, by directly putting the garbage into the dustbin rather than on the floor and picked later.

“Do we know we are eating back our garbage without realising it? The trash we throw into the gutters and the littering ends up in the rivers, lagoons and the sea, which products we consume again, bringing in its wake sicknesses and diseases,” she stressed.

Madam Payne said Ghanaians can earn money by selling the empty water sachets to the water companies and urged them to adopt the system of “I can be paid cash for trash rather than pay for trash created, because one could be sent to court or fined for causing insanitary conditions.

“In fact better sanitation produces an enhanced wellbeing,” she said.

Mr Moses B. Al-Hassan, Director of ERF said management of sanitation in the country was not the best hence the constant reports of cholera outbreaks and malaria as well as other diseases.

Mr Al-Hassan said there was the need for individuals, organisations, corporate bodies and developmental partners to collaborate and help change the mindset of the people for a positive attitudinal change for a clean environment.

“The incidence of malaria cases is on the increase and government must raise the profile of the Environmental Sanitation Day, by declaring it a statutory clean up day at all levels,” he stressed.

“We as an NGO has started on a simple note by adopting communities like Glife near Dansoman in Accra to clean the environment and we are committed to promoting positive behavioural and attitudinal change through music, poetry, dancing, drama and sports, which would have a lasting memory on the minds of the targeted audience.”

He appealed to the media to support the ERF to achieve its objectives.

Mr Robert Yeboah, Deputy NADMO Director, educated the school children on how to keep the environment clean to avoid disasters.

Earlier, the school children undertook a health walk to Glife and inspected the unsanitary banks of the Tetekpo lagoon.

They carried placards with inscriptions like; “Let us avoid filth”, “fale fale feemo mli hewale yor”, “Let's eat good food for good health” “Keep your environment clean”, “We must always put our rubbish into the dustbin” and “Malaria free depends on clean environment”, during the walk.

GNA