B-HeCK Africa NGOs Alliance today announced the launch of their novel sanitation campaign dubbed, the Africa Sanitation Challenge (AS Challenge) to boost efforts to protect lives and the environment.
Mr. Martin Kaphui Tamakloe Jnr., the Alliance Chairperson of B-HeCK Africa, conveyed that, “the Africa Sanitation Challenge has been strategically designed to promote the maintenance and culture of a healthy environment and quality lifestyle practice through advocacy and awareness in order to enforce proper sanitation across the country and the continent.”
With ‘Squeaky Clean Africa!’ as the slogan, the AS Challenge, which is scheduled to commence in Ghana and thereafter replicated in all member African countries of the organisation, is one of the prime initiatives on B-HeCK Africa’s calendar for the next five years and a component of their HELEH CHECC ’21 agenda spearheaded by its health arm, the HELEH Africa Foundation.
Mr. Tamakloe Jnr. said that a recent analysis on Ghana’s Environment by the World Bank put the cost of environmental degradation to the nation at $6.3 billion annually or nearly 11 percent of the country’s 2017 Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
A WHO study in 2012 calculated that for every US$ 1.00 invested in sanitation, there was a return of US$ 5.50 in lower health costs, more productivity, and fewer premature deaths.
“Plastics pollution is rising to catastrophic proportions. Each day, over 3,000 metric tons of plastic waste is produced with much of it dumped as litter or placed into improvised landfills. This waste clogs open drainage systems and pollutes the environment,” observes Mr. Tamakloe Jnr.
By this dynamic social activity, B-HeCK Africa hopes to carefully and effectively lure the general public, diplomatic community, philanthropists, civil society, opinion leaders, pressure groups, individuals and the corporate world to join the campaign to make Ghana and Africa clean and healthy for development.
By so doing, the continent will be able to avert natural disasters like flooding; especially with the onset of the rains, and the outbreak of diseases like cholera coupled with the sanitation canker, which to a large extent obstructs the possibility of achieving the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and some of the SDGs.
The dynamics of the challenge dictate that an entity or organisation identifies a filth condensed area and goes to clear it and, in turn, challenges another institution to do the same.
To set the ball rolling, the B-HeCK Africa NGOs Alliance intends to mobilise internal resources and logistics to clear a filth-condensed area in the Dome-Kwabenya constituency which is within the organisation’s immediate community. After which they will challenge affiliate institutions to replicate the act to enact the challenge.
The main objectives of the B-HeCK Africa’s AS CHALLENGE are;
- To reduce the spread of tropical diseases like Cholera, diarrhoea and others that cause suffering for millions
- To avert natural disasters like flooding which lead to loss of lives and property.
- Provide waste bins at vantage points in communities to curb illicit dumping of refuse
- Work with stakeholders to maintain and improve proper hygiene and sanitation across the board.
The Alliance Chairperson ended by saying that the Africa Sanitation Challenge was a call to action for patriotic citizens and institutions to rise up, come together, and commit to cleaning their immediate surroundings to save lives and boost economic growth for nation-building.
