Scores of media institutions including the Ghana News Agency, Multimedia, Ghanaian Times, Daily Graphic and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation have joined forces to provide coverage for the 64th Annual New Year School and Conference (ANYS&C).
The event slated for January 13 to 18 at the University of Ghana, Legon, is on the general theme: "The key to future health of our nation: Improved water, sanitation and hygiene". It seeks to address the poor sanitation problem which has become a menace to the society.
The 64th Annual New Year School is being organized by the Institute of Continuing and Distance Education (ICDE) of the University of Ghana, in collaboration with other institutions apart from the media partners.
As part of the media sponsorship, GNA is providing free and sustained promotion, publicity and coverage of all activities; free publication of press releases and announcement on the Agency's website (www.ghananewsagency.org) and write news items on the themes as well as sub-themes.
According to a tentative programme made available to the GNA, the Opening Ceremony will take place on January 13, in the Great Hall, to be chaired by the Chairman of the University Council, His Lordship Justice Dr. S.K. Date-Bah, whiles Dr. Joseph Siaw Adjepong, Chief Executive Officer of Zoom Lion Ghana Limited, is expected to deliver the Keynote Address.
The ICDE Director, Professor Yaw Oheneba Sakyi said the aim of the 64 New Year School was to create a dispassionate discussion on how the nation can deal with challenges of inadequate safe drinking water, poor sanitation conditions, inadequate hygiene education, poor physical planning strategies, indiscipline and the lack of enforcement of sanitation laws among other things.
Prof Oheneba Sakyi said the upsurge of sanitation issues in the country called for serious discussions on such health-related issues, adding that those problems were directly linked to the behaviour and attitudes of people.
He called for an urgent need for a national crusade to improve the situation and a drastic change in behaviour to bring this about. Failure to do so, he said, will mean Ghana will miss the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target for improved sanitation by 2015.
The New Year School will also address sub themes such as: Improved Water for All: Realistic Policies and Strategies; Ensuring Improved Sanitation for All: The role of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs); Gender Dimensions of Water; Sanitation and Hygiene; Strengthening Public/ Private Partnerships in Innovation and Commercialization of Waste Management to meet the demands of the 21st Century.
Others are, Promoting Hygiene for Human Development and Responsible Citizenship; Ghana’s Performance in Sanitation and the MDGs; Slums and Peri-Urban Development in Ghana and Environmental Pollution: Dealing with Plastics and E-Waste.
The organisers of the School believe that an in-depth examination of these topics will provide a platform for political and opinion leaders to create strong institutional collaborations to improve on sanitation and hygiene, raise public awareness of the provisions of the revised 2010 Environmental Sanitation Policy and explore innovative ways of dealing with the physical planning challenges in towns and cities.
Additionally, it will build the capacity of MMDAs to effectively implement and monitor the environmental sanitation policy and also provide a platform for the development of a community-led approach to water and waste management.