The National Catholic Secretariat through the Directorate of Governance, Justice and peace and the Catholic Education Unit, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the various stakeholders with funding from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung ( KAS ) has organized a plastic waste management competition for Catholic schools in Savannah and Northern regions at Tamale in the Northern Region.
The competing schools included; St. Charles Minor seminary Senior high school – Tamale, Holy Spirit Senior High School – Chamba, St. Anthony of Padua Senior High School – Bamboi, St. Anne’s Girls Senior High School – Damongo and St. Cypran Minor Semiary – Sawla.
The event which was held in Tamale on Friday, 28th April, 2023 saw St. Charles Minor Seminary coming 1st with 87.73 percent of the total score and Holy spirit SHS coming 2nd with 70.5 of the total score and St. Anne’s Girls SHS coming 3rd with 69.33 percent of the total score.
The winning school will be joining other schools in Accra for the final competition immediately after this years WASSCE .
In a welcome address, the General Manager for Catholic Schools in Ghana, Madam Araba Bentum commended the organizers of the program particularly KAS who she said are the backbone sponsors of the project and also applauded them for putting up such an important initiative to help train students in Catholic schools on how well to manage plastic waste management which has become a menace in many Ghanaian communities.
She also indicated that the maiden edition of the competition took place in the Southern Sector at centres such as Koforidua, Kumasi and Tarkoradi respectively where the contestants displayed amazing plastic waste management skills with students going as far as generating electricity,fuel, building materials among others using plastic waste and also noted that, the centres for the competition in the Northern sector was first launched in Wa in the Upper Wast Region followed by Navrongo in the Upper East region with the third centre comprising the savannah and Northern regions which was held in Tamale.
According to her, the Catholic Bishop’s conference launched the goal six project of the Laudato Si Action programme in 2022 which is a five – year comprehensive plan seeking to galvanize efforts towards reversing the destruction of mother earth compelling the Catholic Education Unit to champion Science, Technology, engineering and mathematics in Basic and second cycle schools to equip the next generation.
She also stated that, the initiative by the National Catholic Secretariat will seek to address issues pertaining to environmental degradation and global warming and therefore called on all people of the world to put in swift and Unified global actions to save the environment by initiating positive responses to the cry of the Earth.
Madam Araba further outlined that one of the challenges with plastic waste in Ghana has to do with the lack of infrastructure to properly dispose them of, a reason for which the National Catholic Secretariat together with it’s partners seeks to help students from the various Catholic senior schools to bring out basic home grown practical solutions to plastic waste management in the country.
She also indicated that the Ministry of Education in recent times has been gearing energy and enough resources into STEM education hence, the need to put up a competition like the waste management competition to help achieve a common goal which is to prepare the children for a productive future.
Each of the participated students were awarded with calculators and certificates for their participation in the event.
Source:Padfm.com.gh/Kumatey Gorden/0243531604
