Three bodies educate students on cleanliness

The Institute of Social Research and Development (ISRAD), in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES), has embarked on sensitisation programmes on the prevention of Ebola and cholera in 10 senior high schools in the Bolgatanga Municipality and the Talensi District.

Additionally,ISRAD, with a sponsorship package from the United Nations Children's Education Fund (UNICEF), has donated buckets and bars of soap to each of the beneficiary schools after the 9,541 students of the beneficiary schools had been sensitised to the prevention of Ebola and cholera.

Beneficiaries

The beneficiary schools include both government and private SHSs. The schools are the Bolgatanga SHS, Bolgatanga Girls SHS, Zemse Technical SHS, Zuarungu SHS, Bolgatanga Technical Institute, Golden Step SHS,Ideal College. The rest are Rock Foundation SHS, Bolgatanga Community Development Vocational Institute and the Tongo SHS.
The beneficiary students are expected to act as ambassadors in their respective schools and communities by propagating and sensitising people to the prevention of the outbreak of cholera and ebola while a number of beneficiary teachers are also to guide the students to undertake the activities.

The students were taken through the signs, symptoms, the sources of the diseases, their mode of transmission and how to safeguard themselves and their schools and communities against them.
The students were also given contact mobile numbers and expected to inform UNICEF about any outbreak of cholera and Ebola in their respective communities so that UNICEF would in turn inform the Ghana Health Service to respond swiftly.

Mr Abdul-Razak Issah, the Regional Coordinator of ISRAD, who spoke on behalf of the Executive Director of the NGO, Dr Mu-Awia Zakaria, said the students would be expected to go back to their various schools and communities to act as ambassadors by sensitising the community members and students to avoid contracting diseases.

Gratitude

The headmasters of the beneficiary schools commended ISRAD and UNICEF for organising and funding the programme, saying it would help solve some of the sanitation problems in their respective schools.
While the teachers who participated in the programme gave the assurance that they would support the students to embark upon their assigned activities, the students pledged to perform the task assigned them.