The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) last Wednesday organised a clean-up at the Salaga Market in Accra as part of complementing government’s “Make Accra the cleanest city”agenda.
The exercise which started at 10:00 am, was to amplify NCCE’s efforts at promoting sustainable environmental management through its civic education.
During the exercise, some staff of NCCE were seen with placards and posters at vantage points, others interacted with traders while some cleared the rubbish gathered around.
Again, mobile vans were used to educate and encourage the public on the importance of environmental cleanliness.
Addressing the media after the exercise, the Chairperson of NCCE, Mrs Kathleen Addy, said one core mandate of the commission was environmental governance as well as educating the public on sustainable living.
“We want to demonstrate to the public what we educate people about all the time, in order for them to see the need of cleaning their environment because if people clean their communities we would gradually have a clean country,” she said.
Mrs Addy stated that, cleanliness also had positive impacts on humanity and health, therefore the little everyone could do to avoid illness was to ensure one worked in a clean environment.
“We are educating people, particularly about plastics waste because plastic is a menace across the country and has a negative impact to humans,” she stated.
She emphasised on the need for more public sensitisation in order to reduce plastics and polythene as they chocked gutters and caused flooding’s during the rainy season.
“We are not attributing only filth as the cause of flooding but that is a significant cause of most floods in the country, citizens can do their part to live in a more sustainable way,” she advised.
Mrs Addy further assured the general public of consistent education in order to improve their lives.
“We acknowledge that some people do not learn after hearing a message once, and the people you speak to today might not be the same people you meet tomorrow, so we have to keep up with the education,” she said.
Giving an advice, she said people should not litter around with the excuse of lack of dustbins in communities because cleanliness was a personal responsibility.
“The dustbins are just a part of the solutions to curb the filth but the major part of the solution is a personal responsibility, civic mindedness and building the communities with good motives,” she added.
BY ANITA ANKRAH
