By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Bolgatanga, Dec 16, GNA – WaterAid, an organisation with focus on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and its partners have implemented a one-year project aimed at promoting good nutrition and hygiene practices among households in rural communities in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region.
Dubbed “WASH-Nutrition for Health Project,” the project is an initiative that leverages infrastructure and programmes in healthcare facilities to empower rural communities to have improved access to nutrition for improved health.
The project has contributed to the provision of universal access to WASH services and empowered beneficiary communities to engage in vegetable production to improve nutrition especially for pregnant women, lactating mothers, adolescent girls and children under five years among other vulnerable groups.
The project was implemented by WaterAid Ghana, in partnership with the Bongo District Assembly, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Bongo District and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) with funding support from the Latter-day Saints Charities.
It is benefiting the Daboya and Atampintin, two farming communities in the Bongo District.
It supported five women groups in each community to engage in vegetable production and lead hygiene practices.
Speaking at the close out workshop in Bolgatanga, Ing Perpetual Y. Diabene, Acting Head of Programmes, WaterAid Ghana, urged the beneficiary communities to sustain the project to achieve maximum impact.
Through the project, two gardens dubbed, “Harvest her Garden” have been established and fenced at the Community based Health Planning Services (CHPS) of the two beneficiary communities.
According to Ing Diabene, the aim was to support vulnerable communities to engage in all year-round vegetable production as part of efforts to improve nutritional security at the household level and serve as a model for future scale up.
Aside from that, WaterAid had already provided a limited solar mechanised water system with storage capacity of 10,000 litres for the Adaboya CHPS which provided sustainable water for all year gardening.
It also constructed another limited solar mechanised water system with storage capacity of 10,000 litres at Atampintin and extended the water to all points of care in the Atampintin CHPS and the community.
She said apart from capacity building training for the communities on best agriculture and hygiene and sanitation practices, the project further added the construction of a gender and disability friendly water-closet toilet facilities at the Atampintin CHPS to help improve sanitation and hygiene practices at the healthcare facility level.
“We want to scale it up and so we are engaging with our donors to see if we can get more funding, but we encourage all stakeholders to maintain the facilities because sustainability is key when investing to attract more funding. It is contributing to achieving the aim of one of our country’s strategies which is ensuring universal access to water,” she added.
Mr. Henry Ayamba, Bongo District Director, Department of Agriculture, said the project was impactful as it encouraged communities to engage in gardening which was contributing to improving nutrition levels of households.
He said the directorate had taken lessons from the project and was working with the communities to support them to continue with the vegetable production and scale up interventions to other communities.
Ms. Estella Abazesi, Bongo District Director of Ghana Health Service, said anaemia in pregnancy was a major issue in Bongo and attributed the cause to lack of nutrition for pregnant women and underscored the importance of the project to improve nutritional levels of households.
GNA