By Sam Arthur
The Kumasi SOS Children’s Village in collaboration with Waste management company Zoomlion , has undertaken a massive clean-up exercise on the streets of the Ejisu Municipality in the Ashanti region .
The exercise forms part of the SOS Children’s Village’s corporate social responsibilities in sanitation awareness campaign to promote clean environment.
The school children mostly drawn from SOS Children’s Village, Asokore Mampong in Kumasi and their teachers together with some workers of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, were seen busily de-silting drains, sweeping streets ,lorry stations and removing heaps of refuse dotted around some spots in front of the market.
Speaking to Ghanaian Watch in an exclusive interview at the forecourt of Ejisu Municipal Assembly after the exercise, a Social Worker at SOS Children’s Village ,Kumasi, Mrs Mavis Agyemang tasked the Ghana Education Service to incorporate Cleanliness in the Ghana’s school curriculum in order to inculcate in the school children the habit of maintaining cleanliness around their immediate environment .
” I’m pleading with all stakeholders in our various educational sector ,that if they can possibly incorporate such programs into our educational sector ,we can equally build in the children the habit of cleanliness in the early stages of their lives.So, that they know even if they get to a point and find a refuse or may be water satchet on the floor and there is a dustbin beside it , because such training has been incorporated in their various levels of education,the person will know that where the rubbish is , it’s wrong so they will put it in the dustbin”
She urged the Ejisu Municipal Assembly to enforce their bye-laws and provide dustbin at various vintage points to ensure compliance of sanitary laws in order to force the residents to develop good attitudes towards sanitation.
The Ejisu Municipal Manager of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr. Eliasu Alhassan who led the school children to undertake the clean up exercise thanked the management and the school children of SOS Children’s Village for taking the initiative towards helping to maintain Ejisu as one of the cleanest municipality in Ghana.
He admonished the school children to practice regular cleaning to keep their communities clean.
Some of the school children spoke to Ghanaian Watch to share their experiences about the clean up exercise.
Victoria Bawuah a student of SOS Children’s Village at Asokore Mampong noted :
“I’m very happy to help the Zoomlion to clean the streets. This is because if this community is very dirty it will affect our lives or may be it cause us to fall sick.” ,
Later a trader at the market who gave her name as Patricia , advised her colleague traders to do their part to ensure the market and streets are kept clean.
She equally asked the Ejisu Municipal Assembly to provide dustbins by the highways to prevent the drivers from indiscriminately litre the place with rubbish
The SOS Children’s Village adopts ophans and supports local children and young people by providing day care, education, medical assistance and vocational training in Ghana .Less privileged children who have no families or cannot be cared for by their families, are catered for in the various homes of the village.
