PUBLIC EDUCATION

The Youth Rise for Sanitation Ghana shall be engaging in an intensive public awareness campaign using Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) as a tool to create public awareness on the need to ensure a safer environment and proper hygiene, coupled with segregating their generated solid wastes in our homes, markets, principal streets and workplaces.

The IEC initiatives are grounded in the concepts of prevention and primary health care, which are largely concerned with individual behavior change and changes in social or community norms, public health education, and communication that seek to empower people vis-à-vis their health actions and to garner social and political support for those actions. IEC creates awareness, increases knowledge, changes attitudes, and moves people to change or continue their behavior or to adopt innovation. To this end, there will be intensive considerations on stages of behavior change such as

- Pre-awareness
- Awareness
- Contemplation
- Intention
- Trail
- Adoption
- Maintenance
telling others

I. COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION

There shall be systematic and consistent involvement of our communities in actively taking part in the resolution of specific solid waste collection and segregation to enhance recycling and a safer environment coupled with beautification.

II. SOCIAL MARKETING

The use of social marketing techniques and principles to influence our target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify, or abandon behavior for the benefit of individuals, groups, or society as a whole shall be adopted.

III. ADVOCACY

As an NGO, we will seek to generate the support of decision-makers both within and outside of Ghana, MMDAs, institutions of concern, and communities collectively, aimed at creating a conducive environment that may lead to a policy that is sensitive to the issue at hand.

IV. STRENGTHENING ASSEMBLIES BY LAWS.

Ghana Youths Rise for Sanitation shall propose the review and strengthening of the current assemblies by law after an MOU has been signed with the key players for its enforcement. This will instill discipline in the stakeholders to uphold the need to maintain hygiene and complement the best practices of preventive health in our society.

SEGREGATING

BENEFITS OF SEGREGATING WASTE.

Segregating solid waste within our communities and our homes will not only promote good health but also a beautiful environment. However, it will also have the benefit of turning the waste into other good uses, such as organic manure, generating energy, reusing raw materials, etc.

Ghana has a lot to show the world as the only country at the center of the equator, coupled with rich ancient sites that attract tourism. This calls for a serene atmosphere and environment to enable such dreams to come true. Recycling refuse and educating the public to accept the best practices for managing the country’s solid waste are forthright and a good thing to be encouraged and accepted by all.

Most often in our everyday lives, organic waste (waste that can rot) and inorganic waste (those that cannot) are mixed together as they are generated into waste bins from our homes, social gatherings and on our streets and transported to the landfill site. That is not the best practice. Source separation of household waste into various component types at the site where it is produced remains positive and should be encouraged.

WHY SOURCE SEPARATION

In Ghana, the current waste management regime costs the MMDAs 60 percent of the revenue they generate. The MMDAs seeks to improve waste collection; however, the challenges are still persisting despite conscious efforts to resolve them. GHANA YOUTHS RISE FOR SANITATION mandate has come with lasting solution to the cyclical bane.

Benefits of Source Separation.

Source separation helps in achieving high reduction rates.
It will promote clean, marketable materials that have the highest tendency to be recycled into a finished product for reuse.

It will serve as an economic benefit of cost avoidance by not disposing of recyclable materials as solid waste.

PROTECTING OUR WATER BODIES CAUSED BY SOLID WASTE POLLUTIONS.

Another heinous activity of concern in Ghana is the illicit disposal of solid waste into our water bodies. In Ghana, all major rivers, lakes, lagoons, and streams have their confluence in the sea. Most of the tributaries of our rivers come from the forest belt to the coastal belts to have their confluence into the sea. And with the open designs of our drains, some recalcitrant disposed their solid wastes into them, posing perineal flooding anytime it rains heavily.

Aside from posing danger to our aquatic species, it also poses danger to humans health and costs our national kitty’s as well. Ghana Water Company Limited depends mostly on our rivers for water supplies into our homes and places of concern for consumption and other uses, and illicit human activities cause pollution to our water bodies, posing a danger to our health. Our outfit will ensure all such illicit activities are nipped in the bud for a safer environment and good drinking water-free food contamination.

COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERISM

After several deliberations and considerations on contributing towards resolving youth unemployment and curtailing dubious activities in that bracket, we settled on engaging the youth in the localities where they belonged for such volunteerism. This move is not only to improve sanitation within the environment to which they belong but will also have them engage in something meaningful. To this end, our NGO will ensure monthly stipends to motivate their contributions. Having testimonials in volunteerism will also enrich their CVs, which will be of help to their future endeavors.

Volunteers visibility and mobility.

There shall be a special volunteer visibility and mobility task force who shall go around our communities and on the principal streets of our cities and urban centers, coupled with other places of concern, to ensure and report promptly to the office with regard to illicit littering situated in a particular area for swift action to be taken.

Against this backdrop, volunteerism opportunities shall be opened without discrimination, irrespective of an individual’s level of education or lack thereof. Also, our NGO has observed the use of tricycles in the evacuation of solid waste in an unhygienic manner within the communities they serve. Tricycle operatives shall be grouped with respect to the communities in which they operate and take them through the best practices of sourcing and separation of solid wastes to enhance recycling for useful purposes.

HOUSEHOLDS PARTICIPATION

Household participation and engagement will be fully intensified as major players in this cause. There shall be community household engagement via workshop orientation using IEC to impart on them their obligatory participation in ensuring solid waste sourcing separation in their various homes. In liaison with the MMDAs, the assembly shall evoke their bylaws and, when possible, review their bylaws to conform with the best practices of ensuring sanitation and curtailing the cost inferred from the assemblies. To this end, every household shall be obliged to source the separation of rotting waste (organic waste) and non-rotting waste (inorganic waste) ready for pickup. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) shall be signed as a social contract between our organization, MMDAs, and the communities, taking into consideration the data of each household.

There shall also be an engagement and education of involvement in this crusade of ensuring proper sanitation with the following stakeholders and places:

- Traders
Religious groups
Commercial transport operatives.
Hospitals and health centers
- Schools
Hospitality industry
- Parliamentarians
State and private institutions
creative arts industry
- Media.

The above stakeholders have a major role to play in this crucial project that will go a long way toward finding a lasting solution to the perennial sanitation problem bedeviling Ghana.

HOUSEHOLDS, OTHER STAKEHOLDERS, AND INSTITUTIONS RESPONSIBILITIES.

Register and get 2–4 waste containers.

ensure that you attend waste separation educational programs.

Use the waste bins correctly by separating rotting waste (organic) from non-rotting waste (inorganic).

Pay the right fees to the door-to-door volunteer collectors.

Do not mix both organic and inorganic waste.

Keep the plastic bins like your own property and encourage the spirit of patriotism and nationalism at all times.

SEPARATION MARKINGS AND INDICATIONS.

There shall be identification markings on both the inner polythenes bag and the main collection waste bin to avert perennial mix-ups or illicit ways of handling the generated solid waste.

The same practices shall be seen on our streets to encourage and maintain proper sanitation practices. On the streets, waste bins shall be placed under cameras to avoid being tampered with by recalcitrant people.

DURATION FOR STORAGE.

Volunteers that are to be signed onto the project shall come from the communities they reside in and shall be responsible for picking up the sourced separation solid wastes from individual homes, hospitals, and other places of concern to a centralized, large, best-fit manhole or sanitation reservoirs stationed within the communities. At this point, it shall be preserved against causing danger to public health.

EVACUATION OF SOLID WASTES FROM THE SANITATION RESERVOIRS TO LANDFILL SITES AND RECYCLING MANUFACTURING PLANTS.

We shall liaise with waste management companies, assemblies, and recycling manufacturing companies to ensure the timely evacuation of solid waste from the centralized reserves to avert posing dangers to the communities. These reservoirs shall be covered and manned by recruited volunteers, who will see to it that they are properly covered as well. The trained monitoring team shall be going round for routine checks, and they shall be done in collaboration with sanitary health inspectors from the

OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT.

Even though the government has been making giant strides in ensuring an environment-free society in Ghana, it still has a higher burden of disease caused by unhygienic conditions. This higher morbidity and mortality is typically due to greater exposure to environmental conditions that increase the risk of disease and injury. Several World Health Organization studies have examined the collective disease burden attributed to environmental risks globally and regionally, quantifying the amount of death and disease caused by factors such as unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation, and indoor or outdoor air pollution. In 2016, the WHO issued a report that estimated that one in four global deaths can be attributed to unhealthy environments.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), a group of communicable diseases found in predominantly tropical and subtropical conditions, affect the poorest populations, who often live in remote, rural areas, in urban slums, or in conflict zones. The CDC reports that one hundred percent of low-income countries are concurrently affected by at least five neglected tropical diseases. With little political voice, neglected tropical diseases typically have low status among public health priorities. Ironically, all rivers, streams, and lakes have tributaries from the middle belt of Ghana into the ocean. Choked gutters that cause perennial flooding are mainly attributed to human factors.

Against this backdrop, the Ghana Youth Rise for Sanitation has decided to embark on ensuring a hygienic and safer environment and to recycle the solid waste generated into a more efficient use under the best ritual practices. Also, the youth that shall be engaging in this volunteerism shall have their ends met; the program will be given STIPENDS as their motivation.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.
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Devising a way to segregate solid wastes within our communities and homes will not only promote good health but also serve the good purpose of turning the wastes into organic manure and turning other metallic scraps and polythene into good use. The following dangers to our health caused by the unhygienic generation of refuse disposals are outlined below:

1. Bacteria, insects, and vermin thrive in garbage.

Overflowing waste bins are an ideal breeding ground for bacteria, insects, and vermin. The flies that visit the garbage are also the same flies that roam around your lunch buffet and drop their offspring on your plate. By doing so, they increase the risk of you contracting Salmonella, which causes typhoid fever, food poisoning, enteric fever, gastroenteritis, and other major illnesses. Besides flies, other animals that thrive on the garbage in and around the containers include rats, foxes, and stray dogs.

2. Overflowing waste causes air pollution and respiratory diseases.

One of the outcomes of overflowing garbage is air pollution, which causes various respiratory diseases and other adverse health effects as contaminants are absorbed from the lungs into other parts of the body. The toxic substances in the air contaminated by waste include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. In everyday life, we identify polluted air, especially through bad odors, which are usually caused by decomposing and liquid waste items.

3. Garbage contaminates surface waters, which affects all ecosystems.

Garbage and liquid waste that end up in water bodies negatively change the chemical composition of the water. Technically, this type of pollution is called water pollution. It affects all ecosystems existing in the water, including fish and other animals that drink the polluted water. Hazardous household waste items such as batteries, computer equipment, and leftover paint can be particularly dangerous for surface waters.

4. Direct handling of overflowing waste exposes people to health risks.

For waste collection staff, the risks of picking up and handling overflowing garbage include infections, chronic diseases, and accidents. Direct contact with waste can result in skin and blood infections through infected wounds, various illnesses resulting from the bites of animals feeding on the waste, and intestinal infections transmitted by flies feeding on the waste. Picking up overflowing garbage is also risky due to sharp objects, needles, and potentially hazardous waste.

5. Inefficient waste control is bad for municipal wellbeing.

Besides causing all sorts of health and environmental issues, overflowing garbage is a public nuisance and eyesore. Everyone wants to live and visit places that are fresh, clean, and healthy. A smelly city with poor sanitation and trash all over the place does not attract people or tourists, let alone investments. Cities keep losing money, and they also miss out on the revenue and job opportunities coming from proper waste control and recycling.