The training which is being held in 55 churches across the 11 selected metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) of the GAMA-SWP operational areas forms part of the observation of the Global Hand-washing Day, which fell on October 15.

It is being sponsored by the World Bank and targeted to sensitise 55,000 congregations on hand-washing with soap to prevent diseases.

Mr George Asiedu, the GAMA-SWP Coordinator of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, made this known in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

It urged religious bodies to encourage their members to take hand-washing with soap seriously, noting that the practice had been identified as one of the easiest way of preventing diseases.

The statement said the GAMA would reach out to people in the communities of the MMDAs, adding that many people do not regard hand-washing with soap as a priority, hence the need to encourage churches to educate their members to avoid outbreak of diseases. At one of the out-reach programme at Mamprobi Nazareth Methodist Church, it said, Reverend Isaac Akushie expressed gratitude to GAMA-SWP and the World Bank for extending the hand-washing health awareness to the churches.