New Juaben forms ‘operation clean community’ committee

An international implementation committee has been established for the “Operation Clean Communities” launched by the New Juaben Traditional Council.

The campaign forms part of the traditional council’s community development efforts within the existing root-based model.

The committee is made up of representatives from the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC), Emory University in Atlanta, USA; the New Juaben Traditional Council and the root-based institutional members.

Meeting

At its maiden meeting last Tuesday, under the chairmanship of the Omanhene of New Juaben, Daasebre Prof. (Emeritus) Oti Boateng, the committee decided to implement the operation clean communities in three phases, namely the pre-intervention phase, the intervention phase and the post-intervention phase.

The meeting, which took place at Daasebre Boateng’s residence at East Legon in Accra, indicated that the three phases would identify and assess the transmission of diseases, provide a plan and solution for the identified problems and finally monitor and assess the impact of the interventions.

The committee set a time frame of one year to carry out the intervention phase before measuring its impact.

The phases

According to the committee, the pre-intervention phase would provide a comprehensive assessment of various exposure pathways of contamination and disease transmission in the communities.

It would also assess the behavioural patterns of the communities with respect to sanitation and disease transmission.

For the intervention phase, the project will involve a comprehensive health and sanitation education in the communities aimed at breaking the various pathways of contamination and disease transmission in the communities to ensure healthy lifestyle.

Also, it will encourage good and positive initiatives such as clean surroundings which add value to the communities, as well as call on the various public stakeholders in health and sanitation to fix the various fault-lines identified during the pre-intervention phase.

Third phase

After a year, the third phase will be rolled out and that will be the post-intervention phase, which will involve another assessment of the various exposure pathways as well as behavioural patterns of the communities.

This phase will permit the use of statistical instruments to measure the impact of the health and sanitation education intervention in the communities, which will thus point to the way forward for sustainable health in the communities.

The committee decided to adapt the SaniPath tool developed by the Emory University in Atlanta, USA, for use in the New Juaben operation clean communities campaign.

The entire process is expected to be replicated and updated on an annual basis.