Zoomlion and GES begins sanitation education in Senior High Schools

Waste Management Company, Zoomlion Ghana Limited in collaboration with the Schools Health Education Programme (SHEP) of the Ghana Education Service has begun a massive Senior High Schools sanitation education to sensitise students on the need to adhere to good sanitary practices.
The introduction of Free Senior High School Education has increased the intake of students in the various schools in the country.

Total enrolment has almost doubled from 393,995 in 2007/2008 to 787,861 in 2015/2016 and the introduction of the Free SHS has increased tremendously these numbers with calls from stakeholders to ensure proper sanitation practices to avert the outbreak of diseases in our Senior High Schools.
To this effect, Zoomlion Ghana Limited in partnership with the Ghana Education Service has started a massive sanitation awareness and improvement programme to  ensure total wellbeing of students in some selected Senior High Schools in the country.
The Volta Regional SHEP Coordinator of GES, Mr. Constant Kofi Dzakpasu during a presentation to students of the EPC Mawuko Girls Senior High School where the exercise started indicated that Ghana is seriously lagging behind as total access to sanitation is just 13% and this is mainly because 59% of the population use community or shared toilets.

“Children lose 272 million School days each year due to diarrhoea globally and an estimated one in three school-aged children in the developing world are infested with intestinal worms”, he revealed.
Mr. Dzakpasu added that these illness promote low school attendance and stunting growth as a result of malnutrition.
He said “Effective behavior change programme are critical to the success and sustainability of all water, sanitation and hygiene interventions. Schools must practice hand-washing with soap, safe handling of drinking water, safe excreta disposal, environmental sanitation and personal hygiene including menstrual hygiene”, he pointed.
A Senior Communications Officer of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr. Adams Mohammed Mahama engaged the students on proper waste management practices by explaining  some of the activities Zoomlion is undertaking to keep communities clean.

He said “Zoomlion has established ultra modern Integrated Recycling and Composting Plants (IRECOP) in Accra, Kumasi and these projects are also currently on-going in all regions to ensure that we create value out of the waste we generate by recycling them to help keep Ghana clean”.
He said faecal waste disposal into open water bodies in Accra has been resolved by the establishment of sewerage treatment plants to help provide environmental friendly way of treating waste water.
The representatives of Zoomlion Ghana Limited also donated wastebins to the EPC Mawuko Girls School to aid in solid waste management on the campus. 
The Head Mistress Of EPC Mawuko Girls School, Mrs Ernestina Peniana expressed the School’s appreciation to Zoomlion Ghana Limited for the gesture to donate wastebins and educate the students on solid waste management practices.
She was optimistic that the knowledge gain and the donation will go a long way to help uplift sanitation issues on the campus.
Mrs Peniana urged other corporate institutions to emulate the example of Zoomlion Ghana Limited to help train young ones on proper environmental sanitation practices to help gain total wellbeing which is required for academic excellence.