Add Study of "Water" school curricula -participants

Accra, July 30, GNA - Participants at a just ended three-day two-in-one workshop in Accra on Thursday, advocated integration of the study of water into Social Studies and Environmental Studies at the basic school level.

This is to instil the sense of respect for potable water and water bodies in children at tender age to ensure that they grew up to better appreciate the value of water. The workshop, jointly organised by Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL) and Wise Water Foundation, was intended to find ways of integrating water as a study area into the basic schools curricula. It was also aimed at training trainers who would champion community involvement in instilling the culture of respect for water among citizens by identifying and reporting illegal connections and leakages of water.

The workshop was targeted at educators drawn from the Ghana Education Service (GES) headquarters and the 'training of trainers' workshop was targeted at members of various Community Water and Sanitation Boards.

Mrs. Josephine Kuffour-Duah, Assistant Director of Education, Basic Education Division of GES, told GNA that at the next review of basic schools curricula, syllabus on water as a study area would be fused into to the Social Studies and Environmental Studies curricula. She said the workshop educated participants on effective ways of harvesting, harnessing, conserving and storing water. Mr. Kuffour-Duah said participants formed project groups, to train children, parents and teachers on how to harvest water during the raining season. Resource persons for the workshop were drawn from the Waterwise Education Team of Rand Water in South Africa, one of the mother companies of AVRL. Ms. Samanta Stelli, one of the resource persons, told GNA that the participants were introduced to creative ways of making learning about water fun.

"In South Africa we use drama, songs, road shows, quizzes, puppet shows, fun games and other fun-fill activities to get peoples' attention then we teach them about water," she said. Ms. Stelli said participants were provided with loads of material on how to teach people to respect potable water and the water bodies in the country.

Ms. Stelli said like in South Africa, participants complained about lack of funding for projects, suspicions between members of communities and AVRL and difficulties with getting people to change their ways and adapt to water-friendly lifestyles. "We have divided the participants into groups and assigned each group a project which we will be back to monitor," she said. Mrs. Sylvia Lutterodt, also an Assistant Director of Education, said her group had adopted a one-year-long project to train teachers, parents, children, opinion leaders and the media within 10 districts on effective water management.

"We have also been trained on how to source funds from donor agencies for their projects," she said. Mr. Samuel Sowah Tawiah from the Teshie Water and Sanitation Board, said the training programme had brought community leaders closer to AVRL and their operations and that would help to reduce the suspicion between citizens and AVRL. He praised AVRL for establishing the community water and sanitation boards to liaise between it and the communities, adding that the boards also had the responsibility of managing AVRL water supply Polytanks within the communities.

"We appreciate the fact that the coming of AVRL has brought some positive change into the water management system in a manner that has brought equitable distribution of potable wate," he said. Mr. Nii Adashie Amoah, a participant said after the workshop, respective community residents would be grouped into zones and durbars would be held to train them on how to identify and report illegal connections and leakages of water among other things. Mr. Abugari Gariba of the Nima Water and Sanitation Board, said it was identified that the reason for rampant illegal connection of water was due to high legal connection fees of about GHC1,000, which was paid up front.

"We appealed to AVRL to spread the payment of connection fee over a period of six months to ease the burden on citizens and thereby encourage people to desist from illegal connection," he said. Mr. Emmanuel Amarquaye, Chairman of Wise Water Foundation, said subsequent workshops would target school teachers, plumbers, operators of car washing bays, adding that 30,000 school children have also been target for water education through field trips to treatment plants in Accra, Cape Coast and Kumasi before the close of 2011. 30 July 09