Community Sensitization on responsible mining, farming and waste disposal

 Each and every day, a fertile land is degraded in the rural communities as a result of the effort of the people to find food for themselves and their families. Activities such as illegal mining “galamsey” and some farming practices are some of the factors that contributes to climate change. “Galamsey” (Gather them and sell) has been a major problem for the Atwima Nwabiagya Municipality particularly in the Amanchia, Kobeng, Nkonteng and Seidi rural communities. As this galamsey activity continue to ruin the fertile land for agriculture, it has also heighten the act of indiscriminate waste disposal in these communities. This is due to the fact that, a lot of people from outside the community come to these communities for their economic activities.

As the world seeks to improve the climate hence the formulation for the Sustainable Development Goal 13 – Climate Action, it is therefore imperative for awareness creation on the dangers of galamsey activities on the people and planet. As galamsey seeks to enhance the economic situation of the people, it also impact negatively on the people and the planet. A small survey on 50 youth in the Amanchia community by the Center for Integrated Rural and Child Development (CIRCDev) in March 2020 on their awareness of the existence of the Sustainable Development Goal indicated that, 88 percent of the respondent have no idea of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Based on this survey, an awareness program dubbed “Community sensitization on responsible mining, farming practices and proper waste disposal” has been designed to educate and sensitize the communities on the dangers on their action on themselves, their families and the planet. This program uses drama to catch the attention of the youth in these communities who are engaged in galamsey to understand the consequences of their actions on themselves and the planet. The program seeks to inform the youth and the general people in the selected communities about the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly, SDG 13 – Climate Action.

At the end of the campaign, it is expected that the people in these community have become aware of the SDG 13 – Climate Action and what the world seeks to achieve under this goal. It is also expected that, the youth who are engaged in this galamsey activities understand the consequences of their action on themselves. In all, the campaign is expected to reach a total of 400 young people from these communities.

WHY RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION?

Rural-urban migration is a major problem in Ghana. The movement of people especially the youth such as school leavers and drop outs from the rural areas to the urban centers in search for jobs and social amenities is the term giving to rural urban migration. Most of the urban centers like Kumasi, Accra, and Sunyani among others are choked with people. The nature of Ghanaian urbanization is examined together with the motivational factors that cause many to leave their rural homes.

A distinction is made between those “committed urbanites” who readily adapt to urban life and the “situational urbanites” who experience greater problems in adjustment to the city. Some of the factors that causes people to move from the rural areas to the urban centers are;

Most of the youth especially school leavers are not willing to engage in rural jobs such as farming, weaving and curving. This is because, they think they are young and educated, and therefore needs a white collar job. This robs the rural communities of their versatile population.

Secondly, the practices of outmoded cultural rites such as trokosi, dipo, childhood marriage, female genital mutilation among others in the rural areas move them to the urban centers. Since some of the rural communities still practice these outmoded rites, it scares the youth especially females to move or run from their communities with the intention of not passing through these rites.

Again, Ghana like many other developing countries, suffers from the problem of unequal distribution of basic social amenities between the rural communities and urban centers. Facilities for higher education, quality health care, major sports and entertainment facilities, telecommunication and the modern economy are all centralized in the regional and national capital cities. Due to this, the people especially the youth of rural areas move to the cities to enjoy those amenities.

With this, the concerns have emanated from the facts that, the bulk of the urban population is constituted of migrants from rural areas and other small towns in the country. The loss of rural population to urban centers is often bemoaned for its implied adverse effect on rural development. Some of the effects of rural urban migration are;

The major effect is the result of high increase in the population in the urban centers. This causes lack of job opportunities since the few jobs available cannot cater for all the unemployed. Also, there is pressure on social amenities causing them to destroy. This forces the government to spend more on the urban areas which increases government expenditure.

Again, rural urban migration brings about decrease in the population of rural areas. This brings about low productivity in farm produce since the energetic youth are not around to engage in commercial farming. This brings about low productivity making it difficult to develop the rural areas.

In addition, adult male migrants make a heavy demand on all family members but especially on children who are left behind to take the responsibility of agricultural production. This brings about a huge impact or effect in the child activities, education and health. That is when children are allowed to engage in farming activities and house chores; it increases the burden of the child making him or her tired most often for school activities. This at times result in sickness and bad health.

With these factors and effects, there are many solutions to help solve this rural urban migration and this dwells on the government, NGO’s, businessmen among others. Some of the solutions to these problems are;

The government should provide basic infrastructural facilities like roads, water and electricity in the rural areas. This will make it easy for businessmen and private industrialists to establish small and medium size industries in the rural areas.

Also, NGO can help provide social amenities, create jobs and educate the public especially rural areas on the effects of rural urban migration. Again, NGO’s should advocate against outmoded cultural practices to make the rural areas a better place to live.

In conclusion, when solutions are put in place, it will help bridge the gap between the rural areas and the urban centers which will prevent people from moving from the rural communities to urban centers. 

In addition, Center for Integrated Rural and Child Development aims at helping to alleviate absolute destitution in rural communities and improve the lives of women, youth and children. With this, it has interest in rural water and sanitation, rural agriculture, rural health and rural education. This will help make the rural communities a better place to live to prevent rural urban migration.

TEENAGE PREGNANCY, THE WOE OF THE RURAL GIRL-CHILD

Women’s having healthier and happier life is enough reason for promoting girl child education because with education, girls have the skills, information and self-confidence that she needs to be better parents worker and citizen.

Education the girl child makes them contribute significantly to the development aspirations of the country in the future.

One statement made by the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki Moon during his speech at the first ever international day for the girl child rally moved my heart. He said ….. I quote: Investing in girls is a catalyst for changing the world……” We must all do our part to let girls be girls and not brides.

Government, parents, guardians and individual citizen should help fight for this course……because we all have a role to play in educating the girl child. We should remember the voice of our own Dr. Aggrey ...”IF YOU EDUCATE A MAN, YOU EDUCATE AN INDIVIDUAL BUT IF YOU EDUCATE A WOMAN, YOU EDUCATE THE WHOLE NATION.”

On the other hand one major problem that is confronting this country nowadays is teenage pregnancy. In the olden days, this problem was mostly non existent due to the prevalence of culture norms like BRAGORO among the Akans. Such rules forbade premarital sex and any violation attracted severe punishment like out right banishment.

Teenage pregnancy is pregnancy in human females under the age of 20. A girl can become pregnant from sexual intercourse after she has began to ovulate which can be before her first menstruation period(menarche), but  usually occurs after the onset of her periods. In well-nourished girls, menarche usually takes place at the age of 12 or 13.

In Ghana, females represent 51.2 per cent of the entire population of almost 25 million whereas adolescents represent 22.4 per cent of the total population. The rate of teenage pregnancy in Ghana are high; of all births registered in the country in 2018, 30 percent were by adolescents ,and 14 per cent of adolescents aged between 15 and 19 years had begun childbearing.

Pregnant teenagers face many of the same obstetrics issues as other women. There are however, additional medical concerns for pregnant girls aged under 15, who are less likely to have become physically developed enough to sustain a healthy pregnancy or to give birth.

Many causes are responsible for the rise in the rate of this socioeconomic problem. Extreme poverty is one of the major causes of teenage pregnancy. The economy of this country is in the woods and as a result of that many industries have collapsed. It is therefore not surprising there is wide spread and massive unemployment in this country. Many parents cannot cater for the needs of their children. The teenage girls in this poverty stricken class almost always indulge in sex in order to make ends meet. Unfortunately a large number of them become pregnant.

Another important cause to which teenage pregnancy can be attributed is peer pressure. Morally corrupt girls usually exercise a lot of influence over their friends and mates who are naïve and gullible. The former usually display the money and personal effects they obtain from their boy-friends who are sometimes as old as their fathers to then envy and admiration of the latter. The morally rotten girls therefore have no difficulty at all in persuading their good friends to abandon their life of chastity and become promiscuous. A lot of the girls are eventually faced with the problem of teenage pregnancy.

The effects of teenage pregnancy are frightening, to say the least. Many of the victims go in for illegal abortions at the hands of quack doctors. The reproductive organs at a large number of these girls are damaged for the rest of their lives. In other words, they become barren. They become liabilities. They worsen the unemployment situation. In order to survive, a lot of them get involved in social vices like armed robbery, prostitution and drug-trafficking. Biological effects of age risk of low birth weight, premature labor, anemia and pre-eclampsia.

It is not possible to eliminate teenage pregnancy from our society, but we must make strenuous efforts to reduce it to its barest minimum. The government should create adequate jobs for the masses of the people. The government must work very hard to revive the ailing economy.

Both parents and teachers must expose the students to comprehensive or enough sex education and access to birth control.

In a nut shell I will say these are some of the reasons why girl child education is important as to teenage pregnancy:

1.  Increased literacy: offering all children education will prop up literacy rates, pushing forward development in struggling regions.
2.  Safe sex:A girl who complete primary school in three times less likely to contract HIV.With these statistics in mind, The world Bank calls education a “window of hope’’ in preventing the spread of AIDS among today’s children.
3. Poverty Reduction: When women gets power to education they goes on participate in business and economic activity which reduce poverty.
4. Smaller Families: women with secondary education or higher have an average of three children. Counterparts with on education have an average of seven children
5. Thriving Babies: According to the United Nation Girls’ Education initiative, children of educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of five.
6. Human Trafficking: Women are most vulnerable to trafficking when they are under-educated and poor, says the United Nations inter-Agency project on human trafficking.
7. Political Representation: Across the globe, women are under represented as voters and restricted from political involvement.
8. Later Weddings: As suggested by the United Nations population fund, one in every three girls is married before reaching the age of 18.In a religion where a girl receives seven or more years of education, the wedding date is delayed by four years.
9. Income Potential: According to the United Nation Education, scientific and cultural Organization, also known as UNESCO, a single year of primary education has shown to increase a girl’s wages later in life by 20 percent.
10. Thriving GDP: GDP soars or increase when girls also go to school.

I have no doubt in my mind that if there measure are applied and realized the problem of girl child education will be improved and teenage pregnancy will be minimized drastically.

CENTER FOR INTEGRATED RURAL AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT (CIRCDev) is ready to prevent, fight and campaign against these problems of child labour, child molestation, child trafficking, street children, teenage pregnancy, child servitude, children on drug, children force into marriage and child right in the country.

Also promoting formal education through provision of scholarship for needy but brilliant students, provision of basic school needs, campaign for Girl-Child education and help school-drops get back to school/classroom and forming teens club in the various rural school to mentor, educate and support these children particularly the girl-child. 

 About the writer:

HAJARA SALIA is product of the University of Development Studies and the FINANCE DIRECTOR of CIRCDev. The plight of the rural girl-child is her much concerned. Due to her passion for the development of rural girl-child, Hajara has adopted two rural poor girls to provide them with their basic needs to enhance socioeconomic development.
Contact:
email:     hajara.salia@gmail.com 
                dof@circdev.org
  
Cell Phone:  +233243224737