UE/R: SOCO PROJECT FACILITATORS URGED TO WORK HARD FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE PROJECT – DCE NABDAM
By: Raymond Batasia Wegwi
The St John’s Senior High Technical School in Kasena Nankana Municipality and the Azeem Namoa Senior High Technical School in Bongo District ,both in the Upper East Region, have been provided with water facilities to improve their health needs and teaching and learning in both schools by ENSTPEYER Foundation, the sponsors from Switzerland and Centre for water , Sanitation and hygiene, the implementing partners . Commissioning both water facilities at separated events, the project Manager, Mr Samuel Vorlashie, stated that, their foundation did what they called ‘WASH’ assessment in Organizations and schools five years ago and realized that there were very stressing gaps in WASH project in the schools, which are being overlooked by Organizations and governments and that has informed them to start the pilot project in St John’s SHTS and Azeem Namoa SHTS , to see this WASH viability or effectiveness in the Senior High Schools and if it can be supported. According to him after the baseline assessment of the project, the realized that both schools were doing hundred percent opened defecation and they decided to end open defecation in both schools , improve hand hygiene, reduce sickness and general sanitation improvement.
The water facilities provided to the two beneficiary schools are, installation of a solar powered mechanized borehole , a 3000- liter water tank on high level concrete water tank stand, a chlorine dozer providing access to safe water for 1,559 students and 138 staff for the St John’s SHTS and same to Azeem Namoa SHTS with the students population of 766 and 46 staff and this will significantly reduce waterborne diseases, improve hygiene, and contribute to a healthier teaching and learning environment and pledged their unflinching continues support and urged the trained sustainability and maintenance committee in charge of the facilities do their work .
The Country Director of ENSTPEYER Foundation on behalf of the team, said it has been a long way to see the project commissioned and will not be the end of the journey for them and appealled to them, to take ownership of the facilities and use them, to get the needed impact and expressed his gratitude to all the stakeholders who contributed to the successful completion of the projects .
Mr. Albert Adonnawura, a duty Director of planning, from the Kasena Nankana Municipal Educational Directorate, on behalf of the Municipal Director, underscored the importance of water, saying that ‘water is life’ and therefore dear to everyone especially his outfit, because if there are crisis in the schools, they gets to them and they should be concerned. He emphasized that, when it comes to planning in Ghana Education Service, there are three important things to consider which are Access, Quality and Management and with the provision of the water facilities, will improve enrollment and that is an access and learning environment and time management is also asured for good academic performance and all these will improve management of the school as teachers will not be chasing students around for being late as a result of looking for water and the work of kitchen staff will also be easy and food will be prepare early to avoid disturbances . He took the opportunity to thank the donors and all the stakeholders for the water facilities and admonished them to handle them well and promised the Directorate monitoring and support in the maintenance of the facilities.
The Headmaster of the St John’s SHTS, Mr Stephen Akuba, the staff, and all the students were very excited with the facilities, that teaching and learning will improve significantly and expressed their sinserest gratitude to the donors and pledged to own it well.
The chairperson of the occation at the St John’s SHTS, Madam Enerstina Pwadura , in her closing remarks , described the project as a’ Dream come through’ for all of them as they are now using water closers and showers unlike first when they used to compete with reptiles in the bushes to attend nature’s called and expressed their profound appreciation to the sponsors and called all and sundry not to be an ‘Oliver Twist’ but rather show a sense of responsibility towards the property and take ownership of it to give them a very meaningful impact in their lives.
