Tema Oct. 21, GNA — 350 Ghana Reducing Our Carbon (ROC), an environmental group, has organised a sensitization workshop to imbibe in children the desire to protect the environment for a better future.
The event, which brought together children from many basic schools in the Tema Metropolis, took the participants through activities and sketches that dramatised the need for cleaner energy in order to print environmental issues in their minds.
Speaking to the press at the Community Seven No. 1 Basic School, the Secretary of 350 GROC, Ms. Patricia Bekoe, stressed the need to educate children on renewable energy and climate change in order to get them involved in the fight to conserve the environment.
Ms. Bekoe said her outfit decided to champion climate change issues through art, “So we want them to capture how they understand the issues going on in a dramatic way.”
“Children should understand what climate change is , what they were doing to contribute to climate change, and to assist them to come up with their own solutions.
“We want them to be agents of change for renewable energy, create fun clubs in their schools where we would engage them on issues regarding climate change and renewable energy, and train their colleagues who were not here on good environmental practices,” she said.
Ms. Bekoe informed that 350 GROC was a formal network of young people who were into climate change sensitization, pushing for renewable energy.
She said one of the areas the organisation focused on was women in renewable energy “because we realised that there are a lot of women in our rural areas who do not know why our rain patterns have changed, why we are having too much sun shine and what they are doing which contributes to climate change.”
“So, we go to these places and we engage the women on good practices, what they are doing that is contributing to the climate change and why they should put a stop to it whilst we give them renewable energy products,” she added.
The Tema Metropolitan Director of Education, Mrs. Bernice Ofori, said, “the pupils were our future and so if they understand what is happening today, they would take control and correct them to protect their own future.”
Mrs. Ofori observed that activities that were being undertaken by them and their parents which was affecting the ozone layer needed to be explained to them.
“They are in their books, but they don’t see thing practically. When we all take part in promoting cleaner energy, we would be able to save the ozone layer and its effect on our atmosphere and on the earth, and we would all live a safer life tomorrow,” she indicated.
The schools which took part in the exercise are, Naylor SNA, JHS, Community 8 No. 1, 2, 3, 4, Republic Road JHS, Achbishop Andoh R/C JHS, Community 7, No. 1 and 2, and Community 11 Complex JHS.
GNA