Kadewaso (E/R) March 23, GNA – The Ghana Red Cross Society (GRCS) and its partners have provided a freshwater supply system for Kadewaso community in the Atiwa East District of Eastern Region, to serve over 7,000 residents.
The water system has a 60 cubic meter overhead tank and four water points strategically placed throughout the community.
It is also designed to automatically dispense water using tokens loaded with e-credits.
Ghana’s sustainable Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Ghana-WASH) project, the Global Sanitation and Initiative (GWSI) of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and NESTLE Ghana were assisting communities in increasing productivity, protecting the environment, and developing their communities through improved water.
The mechanized water system was inaugurated to coincide with this year’s World Water Day, which was held on the theme “Groundwater making the invisible visible.”
Mr Kwame Gyimah-Akwafo, President of GRCS, stated that the project, as part of GRCS efforts to promote water sustainability, would serve 64 cocoa-producing communities in the Eastern and Ashanti regions.
He said GRCS would continue to support the government’s efforts in areas such as emergency response, health education, social mobilization, risk communications, sanitation, and hygiene in communities.
With a partnership agreement of five years between NESTLE and IFRC, the Ghana-WASH project aims to improve health and hygiene services in communities, and that includes the provision of potable water.
According to Mr Gyimah-Akwafo, World Water Day celebrates water and raises awareness that 2.2 billion people lack safe water, 1.9 billion people do not have basic water services at their health care facility, and 1.7 million women in the least developed countries give birth in healthcare facilities with inadequate water sanitation.
“Groundwater supplies a large proportion of the water we use for drinking, sanitation food production and industrial purposes,” he said.
Mr Gyimah-Akwafo said GRCS was able to meet its objectives, which included ensuring water supply was made available to 45,000 beneficiaries during phase two of its project implementation
Mr Bhupinder Tomar, Head of Abuja Country Cluster Delegation and a representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) stated, “not being able to have a dignified life is when spending a portion of the day just to obtain a necessity to keep alive.”
Five years later, he noted, “when we return to the community, our expectations are not only to get water at the community level but also to take it to the next level and provide it [water] in homes.”
Mr Georgios Badaro, Managing Director of NESTLE Ghana said, Kadewaso was one of the hard-working cocoa-growing communities, and that he was glad they had water to help them to continue producing cocoa.
He explained that the journey of Ghana-WASH started in 2016 with the establishment of Ghana sustainable water Sanitation and hygiene.
He said about 300 hygiene facilities were made available to communities, while 170,000 people were educated in the Eastern and Ashanti regions to protect them from the pandemic.
Mr Kwabena Panin Nkansah, District Chief Executive, Atiwa East, expressed gratitude that Ghana Red Cross and NESTLE had assisted the district with sustainable water.
He said the district had provided 26 mechanized boreholes to communities and two water systems at Adasowase and Akyem sekyere.
Nana Boadu, kontehene of Kadewaso was happy they had potable water and that would be good for cocoa farmers to put into use.
GNA