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Friday, March 29, 2024

Church launches Environmental Care Campaign at Sherigu

By Godfred A. Polkuu, GNA 

Sherigu (U/E) Sept. 15, GNA – The Bolgatanga
District branch of the Church of Pentecost in the Upper East Region has
launched the “Environmental Care Campaign” programme at Sherigu, a community in
the Bolgatanga Municipality, as part of its quest to ensure a clean
environment.

The campaign is one of the Church-State
partnerships captured in the church’s vision for the next five years dubbed:
“Vision 2023” which is on the theme: “Possessing the Nations: Equipping the
Church to transform every sphere of society with values and principles of the
kingdom of God.”

Speaking at a community durbar to launch the
campaign, Reverend Alex Kwasi Ansong, the Bolgatanga District Pastor of the
Church, said the campaign was expected to run throughout all the 16 Assemblies
in the Municipality.

He said the church recognised the passion
and concern the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has attached to the
dealing with the sanitation issue in Ghana and that the focus of the church had
been to help realise that goal.

“It is out of this that we have developed
various strategies to run a campaign on the Environmental Care under the
slogan: Environmental Care, My Responsibility,” he said.

Quoting from Deuteronomy 23:12-14, Reverend
Ansong said “If we want God to visit us, then, we need to keep our surroundings
very clean,” and indicated that the campaign was planned to tackle education,
clean-up exercises, and Community-based initiative among other activities.

The District Pastor explained that the
church would focus on attitudinal change and highlight some unhealthy practices
such as open defecation, improper disposal of waste, poor handling of domestic
animals and unfriendly environmental-means of livelihood that contribute to
environmental degradation.

He said the church would continue to educate
its members and the general public on existing environmental by-laws, and
stressed that “The clean-up exercise approach instil in members the discipline
to be physically responsible and be involved in the care and cleaning of the
environment.

Reverend Ansong said the church would embark
on periodic clean up exercises in public spaces and encourage the use of
dustbins at all church buildings, homes and workplaces of members.

He said the church would further collaborate
with the Forestry Commission to ensure tree planting exercises at church sites,
the mission houses as well as other specific areas within the Region as part of
the church’s community-based initiatives.

Mr Kojo Njabore, the Upper East Regional
Deputy Manager of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, thanked the leadership of the church
for the initiative and said “We at Zoomlion believe that sanitation is a shared
responsibility.”

He urged religious leaders to use their
various platforms to teach their congregations the need to change their attitudes
towards ensuring a clean environment, and called on members of the Sherigu
community to join the church to clean the area.

Naba Thomas Apasinaba II, the Chief of
Sherigu, in a message delivered on his behalf, expressed gratitude to the
church for the initiative and entreated members of his community to join the
church to ensure that Sherigu was clean devoid of filth.

The church as part of the launch, cleaned
various parts of the community, presented a refrigerator to the Sherigu Health
Centre and shared both new and slightly used clothing to members of the
community.

GNA

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