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The Abibinsroma Foundation has observed the United Nations (UN) World Environment Day with a call on Ghanaians to clean their immediate environments regularly and free themselves of diseases.

The observance of the UN day by Abibinsroma took the form of a cleanup campaign which saw mostly the youth cleaning the Chemu Park of filth that was destroying the beauty of a tree planting project at the site.

The campaign was also to create a healthy environment around a satellite market set up at the park by the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Friday at the Chemu Park, Community Seven, Tema, the Coordinator of Abibisnroma Foundation, Mr. Bob Amiteye, said the foundation chose the site to demonstrate how markets ought to be kept clean in safeguarding human health.

“We are encouraging citizens to clean up their respective localities so that together we can have a sustainable environment for us to thrive as a nation. When the environment is down then our health is down because our environment is our health,” Mr. Amiteye said.

He observed that “when people feel part of a process they identify with it and they want to see it grow and this is the message we are sending to people; we can all do it in our own small way. And wherever you find yourselves, together we can make our world a worthy place for us.”

Miss Tourism Ghana, 2019, Ms. Celestina Obeng, in appreciating the work of Abibinsroma, said, “I think it’s laudable because protecting the environment goes in the long run to affect our lives positively. We can’t live in a dirty environment; we should live in an environment that is clean, which will protect us from contracting diseases.”

Ms. Obeng said it was everybody’s responsibility to collectively teach the people to keep a clean environment “because as we embark on such exercise, others who see us do it learn from it and may replicate it where ever they are.”

The second runner up, Miss Toursim Ghana, Princess Emmanuella Apuri Awedana informed that “a clean environment is related to a disease free environment.”

Ms. Awedana observed that Miss Tourism is about promoting tourism in Ghana “and if Ghana is not neat there is no way it would attract tourists and a lot of income would be lost”.

The Secretary of Abibinsroma Foundation, Ms. Cecilia Yankey, informed that, as a maiden programme of the foundation, they believed that this step would give the market women the consciousness they needed to continue with such exercises themselves.

Ms. Yankey urged the general public to be conscious of their environment “because without the environment humans cannot survive.”

Abibinsroma Foundation is a Non-Governmental organization that champions issues of the environment, sanitation, climate change and championing societal needs.

The cleanup campaign was supported by the Tema Metropolitan Assembly and the Member of Parliament for Tema Central, Mr. Kofi Brako.