General News of Friday, 11 January 2019
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2019-01-11
Apostle Samuel Gakpetor, National Coordinator, Environmental Care Campaign
The Church of Pentecost, the Kaneshie area, has launched the Environmental Care Campaign which is aimed at helping the government achieve its promise of making Accra the cleanest city at the end of his term.
The Campaign which is part of a 5-year vision of the church seeks to possess the nation and transform every sphere of society with Godly principles and values.
According to the church, environmental degradation resultant of human activities cannot merely be reversed and curbed through government efforts solely, behavioural change by citizens is also a vital factor.
Speaking to GhanaWeb at the launch, the National Coordinator of the Campaign, Apostle Samuel Gakpetor said, the Campaign is meant to tackle a very critical national issue, which is sanitation.
“Environmental cleanliness is a critical issue in our nation,” he said.
Giving the highlights of the Campaign, Apostle Samuel Gakpetor stated that they will be educating the public on how to maintain a clean environment on the church’s various platforms.
“We’ll use our radio broadcast, our pulpits, our bible study sessions as well as our home cell sessions to educate our members on the need to care for our environment,” he explained.
Apostle Samuel Gakpetor noted that Christians who form about 70% of Ghana’s population have a mandate to take care of the environment as stated in Genesis 2.15.
He added that the church will be embarking on clean-up campaigns within the various areas of the country and engage in specific community initiatives like tree planting, education on noise pollution as well as open defecation so that issues of cleanliness will be tackled.
Apostle Samuel Gakpetor said they are expecting that the government, represented at the various levels will collaborate with the Church of Pentecost in order to achieve their goals of helping the central government solve the sanitation problems of the country.
Also, the Church of Pentecost is expecting that the government, as well as the various MMDCEs, will make equipment available to the church to help in their cleaning exercise.
“We want to request that government insist on enforcing bye-laws in our nation. There are laws that ban us from doing all kinds of things in our communities, therefore, we expect that the government will ensure that these laws will be adhered to,” he said.
“As we are educating our people, we expect the government to employ efficient waste management companies who will collect these waste when they are full,” he stressed.
The focus of the Campaign is not limited to polluting the environment but also noise pollution, air pollution, water pollution as well as land pollution.
The theme for the Campaign is ‘My Environment, My Responsibility’.
