NGO joins President’s campaign on sanitation

A Non-Governmental Organisation into education and environment has joined President Mahatma’s national campaign on sanitation using the third week of every month to embark on clean-up exercises.

Known as Centre for National Development of Girls Education, Environment and Water Advocacy Foundation, (CENDEGWAS), operating in the Upper East Region, the NGO links up with Zoomlion and other youth groups to undertake a clean-up exercises in the region.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency, Mr Atompoya Joel Daniel, Director of the NGO, said his outfit decided to partner government to confront the issue of sanitation because citizens of Ghana could not die of avoidable diseases like cholera in this 21st century.

He said CENDEGWAS was also educating students on sanitation issues to become ambassadors of sanitation in their schools, homes and communities.

He expressed concern about the upsurge of open defecation in many communities in the region and said many of the households were without toilet facilities.

He blamed the problem on the refusal of the municipal and district assemblies to enforce Act 189 of the Sanitation Law which stipulates that any person or body wishing to erect a building shall provide a toilet facility and failure to comply warrants prosecution by the laws of Ghana.

He called environmental health officers, assembly members, chiefs, imams and pastors among others to collaborate and work assiduously to bring an end to sanitation-associated problems in Ghana.