Adolescent Friendly and Peer Educators Organization, a Non-Governmental Organization in partnership with SEND-Ghana, Penplusbytes and Ghana News Agency have through the People for Health programme (P4H) organized a week-long sensitization durbar in five project communities within Lower Manya Krobo.

The coalition, through a 15-member Municipal Citizen Management Committee (MCMC) including traditional authorities, the Ghana Federation of Disability Organization, the municipal assembly, assembly members, the youth, Persons Living With HIV, CHPS management committee, civil society organizations, queen mothers, among other groups sensitized locals of the project communities on bad environmental practices with the aim of preventing water and sanitation-related diseases as well as preserving the environment.

The SEND-Ghana sponsored public fora was held via community engagements in five project communities in the Lower Manya Krobo municipal in the eastern region included Odumase-North (Adome), Odumase-South (Hwekper), Agbom East and West (Agbom), Ayemersu Ako and Oborpah-Djekiti as well as in Yonguase, a non-People for Health project community.

The coalition regretted that many efforts put in place to encourage the citizenry to adhere to basic sanitation practices including the practice of open defecating have yielded no positive results, hence the need for the coalition/media’s intervention towards achieving good environmental practices.

The group through the Municipal Health Promotion Officer, Mrs. Rose Lawer proposed an efficient transportation system for the locals to help provide a means of transportation in times of health delivery emergencies.

The Municipal Health Promotion Officer in her presentation urged the locals of the various communities to institute a community emergency transport system, CETS, a system she explained would help convey locals who develop emergency health needs to nearby health facilities for either first aid or full health service.

With the absence of ambulances coming as a major health delivery deficiency in most parts of the country, the CETS programme is expected to help alleviate the major transportation difficulties and assuage the exorbitant charges of ambulance services while conveying emergency health cases to various health facilities.

While observing that the absence of a reliable means of transportation has led to several casualties, madam Rose Lawer said health emergencies including maternal emergencies can be adequately addressed if locals provide a standby vehicle and drivers who would be called at emergency times including the night to help convey affected persons to health centers for the necessary attention.

She said people spent huge sums of money in treating diseases caused by poor sanitation and noted that locals could help minimize that loss by educating themselves on the dangers associated with bad sanitation practices.

She urged the various communities to constitute a seven member CETS committee to carry out the implementation of the emergency transport delivery services in their respective communities.

Madam Joycelynne Anumah who is the Environmental Health Officer at the Lower Manya Krobo Municipal Assembly took members of the community on the WASH (Water And Sanitation Hygiene) programme and decried the poor sanitation situation in various communities in the municipal.

While reminding participants on the need to ensure proper hand washing to ensure good hygiene, the Environmental Health Officer explained the need for and demonstrated proper hand washing to the locals and urged them to maintain the practice at all times to ensure good health.
With open defecation being another major challenge in most communities, Madam Joycelynne bemoaned the practice and observed that the unhealthy practice was tantamount to endangering their health since the practice has the tendency to spread diseases.

She condemned other anti-sanitation practices including running bath water on streets and the preparation and sale of food under insanitary conditions, adding that such practices were against the law where offenders stand the risk of a fine or imprisonment or both.

President of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organization in Lower Manya Krobo, Mr. Isaac Partey who condemned incidents of attempted abortions said the practice was responsible for most cases of disabilities in the country and called on women to abstain from the act since most children who survive abortion attempts suffer one form of disability or the other.

Mr. Partey also rebuked women and relatives of women being pursued with marriage proposals by Persons Living With Disabilities intending to marry them, arguing that physically-challenged persons are also humans and part of the society and should therefore be given the chance to marry men and women of their choice.

He urged families with physically-challenged persons not to hide relatives affected by any disability condition in their homes or lock them up in rooms but rather bring them out for the necessary support.

Speaking after the fora, Focal Person for People for Health Programme who doubles as Executive Director for Adolescent Friendly and Peer Educators, Mr. Samuel K. Atter expressed satisfaction at the turnout and participation of the locals in the various communities for the sensitizations but however called for behavioural change on the part of the citizenry to ensure that the objectives of the programme are achieved.

Mr. Atter who regretted the poor sanitation situation in various communities in the municipal following a survey in a number of communities including the absence of toilet facilities, lack of refuse containers, poor liquid disposal systems, etc, said the findings of the survey informed the need to run the programme.

He therefore appealed to the citizenry to accept behavioral change to ensure that good sanitation practices are adhered to.
Various committees including CHMC, WASH and CETS committees were also formed in the project communities to supervise the implementation of the various activities.