Wa, July 6, GNA - Mr Sampson B. Fordjour, Field Project Officer of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), an NGO, has appealed to the people of the Upper West Region to embrace the environmental sanitation programme initiated by it. They should therefore, collaborate and participate in it for the successful achievement of the objectives of the programme in their respective communities.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Wa, Mr Fordjour said the programme, which was aimed at promoting the preventive aspect of good health among the people was being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He said ADRA-Ghana had since 2002 provided 212 household toilets and thirty-two hand-dug wells and bore holes in a number of communities in the region at a cost 6.9 billion cedis. He noted that communities that had benefited from these facilities had since not reported any case of water borne disease, such as guinea worm, cholera and trachoma. The Field Project Officer added that, recently, his organization had presented prizes to six communities in the Wa municipality and Wa East District, that were adjudged as the most clean among the communities. The prizes included wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes and dustbins among others.

Mr Fordjour added that any attempt in reducing poverty without cognisance of improvement in water and sanitation was likely not to make the desired impact.