In-coming national service personnel to act as agents of change
Final year students from three tertiary institutions in the Central Region of Ghana have been urged to go out and act as agents of change in their communities. This advice was given to students of University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Cape Coast Technical University (CCTU) and the University of Cape Coast (UCC) during the annual orientation of final year students who will be joining the National Service Scheme. The event is organised annually in March and April by the Central Regional National Service Secretariat.
The Founder and Director of SHAPE Attitude Ghana, Wonderful Baisie Ghartey, illustrated to the prospective national service personnel the harmful effects of poor sanitary conditions facing the country especially, indiscriminate littering and open defecation. He went on to explain that the practice was largely attitudinal and if efforts were directed at changing the negative attitudes, that alone will have addressed a big part of the challenges with poor sanitation. It was all a question of changing the mind set and on this note employed the prospective service personnel to go out and be agents of change in their communities.
Mr Ghartey said communities have the potential of triggering individual and collective communal action to improve environmental sanitation. Therefore, as part of their role, they should go out and engage community and opinion leaders and mobilise the communities for regular sensitisation and awareness campaigns to change the mindset. In doing so, they should also target the young children and the youth associations in their communities. A note of caution was, however, sounded to the service personnel to show “leadership by example” and dispose off waste responsibly then only they can have the courage to confront deviants and correct them to stop the negative practice. Mr Ghartey ended his speech by urging the service personnel to be generational thinkers and look ahead beyond their life time and leave the earth better than they found it.
An estimated four thousand students attended the orientation sessions on the campuses of UEW, CCTU and UCC. At the sessions on each of the campus were Deans of Students’ Affairs; the Regional Director of National Service Secretariat, Rev Robert N.L. Kwame Adjei; the Regional Administrator, Mr Daniel Dawuso and staff from the National Secretariat with the Deputy National Coordinator, Mad. Emma Hammond, leading the team.
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