Calls for water and sanitation facilities to be provided as part of the of the Ghana School Feeding Programme

Calls for water and sanitation facilities to be provided as part of the of the Ghana School Feeding Programme

More than half of the 116 Schools under the Ghana School Feeding Programme in the Northern part of the country do not have access to water and sanitation [WASH] facilities. In view of the consequences of the situation on school attendance, Civil Society Organizations {CSOs} in Tamale have urged government to review the document piloting the Ghana School Feeding Programme {GSFP} to mandate the secretariat to provide water and sanitation facilities to such schools as part of the scheme.

The civil society groups, that are, New Energy, Plan Ghana, Dutch Development Organization, Send Foundation, Action-Aid, IBIS, TRIAS Ghana, IBIS and others say that the non-availability of WASH facilities in the schools compel pupils to walk long distances for hours during teaching periods to fetch water from rivers and streams to fill water tanks to wash their hands, drink and for cooking by caterers before being served their meals.

These civil society working group contend that the situation has affected school attendance decline, and makes pupils not to sit in classrooms for teaching and learning but rather roam through communities and the scorching sun searching for water for use in schools.       

The forum was on the theme, “charting a way forward on how to address the water and sanitation issues affecting the Ghana school feeding programme”.

 

In this vein, Chairperson of the working group Adama Jehanfo at a workshop in Tamale on recently} for stakeholders in the WASH sector to find ways of addressing the situation said the effects of the non-existence of WASH facilities in the region posse severe consequences to the development of the youth especially the “girl child” . Madam Jehanfo called  n  government to collaborate with stakeholders to find other alternatives to address the problem.

“Most often when the GSFP is mentioned a picture of children being served with meals is what comes into mind but the host of activities that take place before the food is served need to be critically looked at because of the diverse negative impact on health and quality of education,” she said.

The chairperson noted that the availability of water and WASH facilities in schools throughout the country was critical to the success of the GSFP as no cooking could be done without water and also there is the high possibility of pupils falling sick from drinking contaminated water from ponds.

A recent research conducted by SEND Ghana indicated that 43 percent of schools on the GSFP in the region do not have access to safe drinking water, 83 percent of the schools had been supplied with water tanks by the programme but are always empty, and 37 percent were of these water tanks were not in use due to operational challenges.

The report also revealed that 26 percent of the schools have no access to toilet facilities, 35 percent lacked urinals whiles 87 percent of the schools lacked hand washing facilities. 

Due to these alarming figures, the Northern Regional Director of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, Wigbert Dogoli, called for a national policy to provide water and sanitation facilities to schools in the country.

However he said, “before this plan is carried out nationwide , district assemblies should consciously include the provision of WASH facilities in their policies.

Report by Patrick Baidoo of the Ghanaian Times