In our collective efforts to ensure that good sanitation come to stay in the university of Cape Coast, on e would idly ask, what can I do to help?
The widespread unsanitary conditions in Europe and Asia in the middle ages resulted in pandemics such as the Black Death (1347-1351), which killed tens of millions of people and radically altered societies, the UCC community would certainly not want to fall victim of such implications of unsanitary conditions.
Good sanitation ensures mental orderliness, and considering how academic achievement is the purpose for the creation of the University, we should be clamouring toward good sanitation for healthy living.
The opposite is what we see today. Stagnant waters and rubbish dumps are seen right around students’ residence. These stagnant waters breed mosquitoes and the rubbish dumps generate very bad stench which pose serious health risks and are detrimental to our lives. Close to the Science Taxi Rank has been turned into a refuse dump and authorities most especially the SRC executives are pretending they have not seen it, waiting for someone to tell them to do what they are being paid to do. How can anybody guarantee the safety of the foods being sold at the science market? I was shocked to hear from the Local NUGS President when he addressed UCC House of parliament that they are now putting modalities in place to ensure that those who sell at the science market are screened medically. So for all these past period, what were there doing.
When sickness abound among students out of poor sanitation, our integrity as knowledge-seeking individuals would be questioned, lectures participation would reduce drastically and hence the purpose for which students travel far and near to the university would not be achieved.
Obviously, two dangerous diseases, malaria and cholera would creep their ugly heads as students continue to be subjected to abuse by mosquitoes breeding from stagnant waters and rubbish dumps that have left us at the mercy of flies and bad odour.
Good health on campus can be achieved when unsanitary conditions are well taken care of. What are we then waiting for? We need to bring all hands on deck to keep our surroundings clean. We as students must stop throwing rubbish around haphazardly and the university authorities should intervene by helping to drain stagnant waters.
The welfare of all students on campus must be our chief concern and it is by this that “Our sanitation”, we can say is, “Our hope” for a healthy posterity.
The famous Latin saying goes “mens sana in corpora sano” to mean a sound mind lives in a healthy body.
Christipher Nyame
B.A. Communication Studies
0241943113
