The Safe Child Ghana, a Non- Governmental Organisation (NGO), has intensified its innovative Water Access, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) board games to instill good sanitation and hygiene practices in schools.
The World Bank sponsored project is part of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area –Sanitation and Water Project (GAMA-SWP).
The WASH board games is based on communication approach strategy to motivate pupils to adopt and sustain healthy behavior towards sanitation and hygiene in their lives.
It is a partnership agreement with Safe Child Ghana and the GAMA-SWP with the overall objective of increasing access to improve sanitation and promote good behavioral change among children.
The sanitation board games also tackles five thematic areas namely promoting hand washing behavior, environmental sanitation, water and food safety, stopping open defecation and the maintenance of (GAMA-SWP) school’s toilet facilities in the 11 Metropolitan, Municipal District Assemblies (MMDAs).
Mr Michael Baabu, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Safe Child Ghana, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview at the La Bawaleshie Cluster of Schools in the La Nkwantanang, Madina Municipal Assembly (LaNMMA), that they have covered about 12 schools in the GAMA-SWP jurisdiction while every child received and own a board game for free to learn the sanitation and hygiene behavior at home.
He said children are the agents of change, hence the need to focus on them through the usage of our board games and to also influence other people to achieve behavioral change.
“As children spend most of their time in schools, this is the place where they should learn and be motivated to perform good WASH behavior such as washing their hands with soap and always using toilets facility properly”, he said.
Mr Baabu said educating school children on basic hygiene is very important because many of them are eager to learn and can promote positive behavioral change in others.
Mr Divine Bobbie, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) Sanitation and Hygiene Education Programme (SHEP) Coordinator, told the Ghana News Agency that children have important roles to play in households chores related to hygiene and can instill change within their families and communities.
He said hygiene education is about helping people to understand what causes some of their health problems and what preventive measures could be possible and expressed gratitude to the Safe Child Ghana for designing the board game.
He called on the MMDAs to have a strong commitment, effective and sustained hygiene education to change the behaviours of the public.
By Samuel Dodoo GNA
