GREEN GHANA PROJECT LAUNCHED AT KPANDO-TORKOR (PAGE 65)

THE Ministry of Tourism and Diasporan Relations, in collaboration with the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), has launched a Green Schools project for basic schools in the country.
The project starts on a pilot basis, with schoolchildren from selected schools in the Kpando District and the Ho Municipality undertaking a tree-planting competition that will be closely monitored by the ministry and the GTB to ascertain which school will be the most successful in greening its compound and surroundings.
The sector Minister, Mrs Oboshie Sai Cofie, inaugurated the project at a durbar to climax World Tourism Day which was celebrated on the theme, “Tourism, Responding to the Challenges of Climate Change”, at Kpando-Torkor in the Volta Region.
“This catching-them-young programme will gradually instil in Ghanaian children the essence, merit and benefits of growing trees around our surroundings,” she stressed.
The minister said the winning schools would be given various incentives and prizes that could include air tickets, bursaries, excursions, book gifts and public acclaim.
She also said teachers and head teachers who led the programme in their schools would also have some surprise benefits.
Mrs Cofie underscored the need for non-governmental organisations to intensify their efforts at protecting and rehabilitating the environment, since tourism depended on a sound environment.
She said it was pertinent for schools and colleges to be encouraged to take up the practice of greening Ghana, adding, “We have only one environment and we must jealously protect it.”
In an address read on his behalf, the Volta Regional Minister, Mr Kofi Dzamesi, called for increased efforts towards the professional development and marketing of the tourism potential of the region to increase tourist visits in order to improve the local economy of communities.
Mr Dzamesi said the theme for the celebration was appropriate because the present high spate of disasters across the world should be a wake-up call to every citizen, in view of the destruction that had occurred from tidal waves, hurricanes and changes in rainfall patterns leading to floods and landslides.
The Member of Parliament for North Dayi, Ms Akua Dansua, said climate change was real, noting that it needed a frontal attack by all stakeholders to ward off its negative aspects.
She said it was time the German government responded to the tourism development agenda of the Kpando District, in view of its colonial relationship with the area, adding that the German government could be useful in tapping the tourism potential of the district to foster economic growth.
The Fiaga of the Awate Traditional Area, Togbe Noagbesenu III, who chaired the event, expressed concern over the underdeveloped tourism potential of the Kpando District and charged the assembly to rise up to the challenges to lift the area up.
A Ghana peace train group, led by Nana Adwoa Awindor, read a peace message to the gathering, while a drama troupe from the Volta Regional Centre for National Culture rocked the gathering with an educative drama on the effects of tree felling, charcoal burning and fishing with chemicals that are detrimental to the environment.