Dumsor Dumsor: Its social impact on the society! PART 1

That very moment you hear shouts of “O Mahama”, “dumsor again”, “O ECG”, and the furious grin on faces of people whenever there is a power outage, sometimes you begin to wonder. If obviously ECG was to be a human being, then people will always beat the hell out of him when their lights go off.

This popular term has come to stay in Ghana due to the continuous power outages Ghanaians are experiencing. This problem is caused by either a reduction in the water level of the country’s dam or supply of gas from Nigeria to power the Aboadze thermal plant at Takoradi to complement power generated from the Akosombo hydro-electric plant.

This has caused a lot of problems especially economic loss to the country; with other disturbing social impacts on children, families, individuals, communities and the country at large.

Several promises have been made and the latest from our President John Mahama is that he will make sure he ends dumsor dumsor in 2015; well our hopes are in high estimation that this promise should not be vague but a reality.

By not drifting from my topic, dumsor has created a huge social impact in the country; a lot on the average and middle-income earners.

Today my focus is the impact of dumsor on our children.

Dumsor dumsor is not only affecting the studies of our vulnerable children who are the future leaders of this country but it is also affecting the lives of unborn babies in the country.

Our children, whose parents cannot afford a generator set to subsidise in the evenings whenever there is power outage, are forced to either study with a candle, flashlight or any other means.

This does not only affect their eyes but psychologically affects the speed of thinking of these children by creating room for laziness.

Some children will opt to lay idle with the excuse of not feeling comfortable with the usage of the other sources of light.

At that very moment of power outage, in remote areas where health facilities cannot provide a generator set, lives are lost.

Interestingly, this dumsor has motivated a six year old boy of Christ the King R/C Primary School in Ahesan, Ashanti region to dream of becoming a president of Ghana; with the goal of putting an end to Dumsor Dumsor.

The dumsor dumsor hullabaloo never ends so keep in touch for part 2 of this topic.