Eremon, (UW/R), Mar 05, GNA – Rotary Club’s intervention in the Eremon Senior High Technical School (SHTS) in the Lawra Municipality has salvaged female students at the school from the unpleasant situation of resorting to nearby bushes to defecate.
Open defecation was endemic among the students in the school due to the lack of befitting toilet facilities for both males and females.
The situation exposed the students to the health risk of sanitation-related diseases such as cholera and the life-threatening challenge of competing with reptiles and other harmful animals in the bush, especially at night.
In response to the challenge, Rotary Club of Wa in partnership with the Rotary Club of San Jose, California, commissioned a ten-seater septic tank toilet facility with water access at the cost of USD13,250.00 for the female students to help alleviate their plight.
That was through the efforts of Rotarian Alfreda Afisah Eghan of the Rotary Club of San Jose, California, who also championed the resource mobilization for the recently commissioned USD100.000.00 school Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project in Bole in the Savannah Region.
Speaking at the commissioning of the facility at Eremon, Dr. Zakarea Al-Hassan Balure, President of the Rotary Club of Wa, expressed the commitment of the Club to help create a conducive environment for teaching and learning to thrive.
He said access to WASH services by the students was critical in providing a healthy and conducive atmosphere for academic activities to thrive.
“The pride of Rotarians is to see that our efforts yield the needed results, and the expected beneficiaries will be impacted positively,” Dr. Balure stated.
In a message on her behalf, Rotarian Maame Florence Hagan, the District 9104 Governor, urged school management to ensure proper facility maintenance.
The Club inaugurated a sustainability committee to oversee the maintenance of the facility to ensure it served posterity.
The Rotary Club of Wa had earlier donated ten desktop computers to the school to enhance the teaching and learning of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the school.
He expressed gratitude to the school’s management for their unwavering support to the Club through the project execution.
Mr Issah Ibrahim Saibu, the Headmaster of Eremon SHTS, thanked Rotary Clubs of Wa and San Jose, California, for the intervention, which would help improve hygiene in the school.
He assured the benefactors that the school’s management would support the sustainability committee to ensure they adhered to a proper maintenance culture of the facility.
Mr Saibu added that the computers donated to the school by the Club had helped improve ICT teaching and learning and improve the students’ performance in ICT in the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination.
Some students who spoke to the Ghana News Agency expressed delight about the project and said it would save them from thinking about going to the bush to respond to nature’s call while in class and protecting their dignity of womanhood.
Rotarian Agambire Inusah Alhassan, Immediate Past President of the Rotary Club of Wa, encouraged guests and school authorities to join Rotary to contribute to impacting their communities.
The theme for the 2024/2025 Rotary year is “Be the Magic of Rotary”, which encourages Rotarians to recognize and amplify the organization’s ability to save lives.
