Communities have been encouraged to train children to keep their surroundings clean and help them appreciate the need for a hygienic environment early in life.
This will also help create awareness of the benefits of a clean environment.
In an engagement with the La Community in the La Dadekotopon Municipality in the Greater Accra Region, the Corporate Communications Manager of Vivo Energy Ghana, Shirley Tony Kum, said it was important for communities to educate and cultivate the habit of regularly cleaning their surroundings for children to appreciate that a clean environment led to the reduction of diseases.
Ms Kum gave the advice when her company teamed up with a non-for-profit organisation, United Way Ghana, to embark on a three-hour clean-up exercise at the La Ennobil School as part of their campaign to promote a clean environment
Exercise
Staff of the organization were joined by members of school the school social clubs to pick refuse and clean gutters, sweep and dispose of refuse and to engage members of the community.
The two groups provided a number of waste collecting equipment such as wheelbarrows, pickers, brooms, shovels and dustbins for the clean-up after which they were donated to the school to facilitate easy collection of garbage.
Initiative
Ms Kum said as an energy company, Vivo Energy was committed to environmental stewardship, as that would go a long way to protect the planet and promote a circular economy.
She indicated that the exercise was also part of their corporate social responsibility to encourage the community to be a model community in the roadmap towards keeping the environment clean.
The Vivo Energy Corporate Communications Manager also encouraged the children to adopt waste segregation habit to help save the environment from plastic waste, an exercise which could also be an avenue to earn some income through collection of waste for recycling.
Environmental club
The Executive Director of United Way Ghana, Felix Kissiedu-Addi, said the exercise was also to improve basic education strategy and create the right ambience for young children to learn within a clean environment.
Mr Kissiedu-Addi said to sustain the educational campaign and interest of the children, environmental clubs had been set up and expressed the hope that it would yield the needed impact and also be replicated within the community.
Commendation
The Head Teacher of La Ennobil Basic School, Michael Kwabia Odorkor, commended the two organisations for selecting the school for the clean-up exercise and campaign to educate and create awareness of the need for a clean environment.
He gave the assurance that the pupils will be encouraged to be ambassadors of proper waste disposal in their communities.
He also said the cleaning equipment donated to the school would make cleaning in the school a lot easier.
“Once the habit is imbibed, we will see a change in some of the children’s attitudes as well as their parents, and they will grow up as good citizens,” he said.
A pupil, Esther Torshie Obodai, who took part in the clean-up exercise, said she had learnt the benefits of segregating waste and cleaning the environment and will, thus, always encourage her mates to do so and also become an ambassador in her home.