The Volta Regional Coordinator of Senior High Schools, Mrs Doris Abayavor has appealed to all stakeholders to prioritize sanitation issues in the various Senior High Schools to help improve the health of students and academic performance.
The introduction of the free Senior High School education programme has doubled the total intake of students which has overstretched facilities with concerns for improved sanitary measures to help avert communicable diseases.
Speaking in an Interview during a sanitation sensitization programme being organized by Zoomlion Ghana Limited and the Ghana Education Service at Vakpo Senior High School, Mrs Abayavor stated that “per the population we have in the Schools almost everything is over stretched and sanitation issues should be prioritized to help avert the spread of diseases”.
She said ” Sanitation should start with the personality involved up to the community at large and students should start with their personal hygiene which will help improve their health and academic performance”
Mrs Abayavor expressed gratitude to Zoomlion Ghana Limited for the partnership with the Ghana Education Service to help undertake sanitation awareness programs in Senior High Schools and appealed to other private institutions to support schools in need of improved sanitation facilities.
The Schools Health Education Programme (SHEP) Coordinator of the Volta Region, Mr. Constant Kofi Dzakpasu took the students through personal hygiene tips such as handwashing, cleaning one’s immediate environment among others and tasked them to practice personal hygiene at all times.
He said “Effective behaviour change programme are critical to the success and sustainability of all water, sanitation and hygiene interventions. Schools must practice handwashing with soap, safe handling of drinking water, safe excreta disposal, environmental sanitation and personal hygiene including menstrual hygiene”.
A Senior Communications Officer of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr. Adams Mohammed Mahama explained properly solid waste management practices by stating that “Solid waste management starts with the individual in that when you put your solid waste in a wastebin, it becomes easier to collect and send them to recycling facilities established by Zoomlion to recycle them into re-useable products”.
He charged the students to be good agent of sanitation practices in their communities to help make Ghana a clean nation.
The Assistant Headmaster of Vakpo SHS expressed the School’s appreciation to Zoomlion Ghana Limited and GES for the education and support to help manage solid waste within the campus.
The team donated wastebins to the school to help store solid waste for safe collection.
