Emmanuel Glover||University of Ghana
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water is a vital substance needed in the Life of every human for the continuous existence.Water play very important roles in the lives of individuals through domestic usage,industrial usage and serves as a need for existence of other living species.Explaining futher, water play roles in cooking some meals,maintaining personal and sometimes communal hygiene as well regulating the body temperature.
Covid-19 still in existence within the human race or society to which Africa and Ghanaians are not exempted.At a point where the new variant is spreading at an average rate of 200 cases per day,Ghanaians cannot be negligent of this fact and its likely effects on individual citizens and the country as a whole.Therefore, following COVID-19 safety protocols cannot be ingnored.Protocols such as wearing of nose masks,washing of hands under running water with soap, usage of hand sanitizers and keeping distance from people are still the best options at this point in time.
First batch of University of Ghana students were scheduled to report in the mid of the month of January,2021.Necessary arrangements were made to accommodate students and to correspondingly prevent the spread.Students were made to sign online forms or probably a bond which aims at obeying safety protocols,other ideas like provision of veronica buckets,strict wearing of nose masks and hand washers at entry point of every hall and its annex had been key as well as disallowing visitors which includes students not members of the hall or the annexes.
However,domestic issues within some of the halls,hostels or mostly the annexes have not been up to expectations in this Covid period and therefore has the efficacy to affect students safety and comfort adversely.
The role of water as a vital element cannot be overlooked at this critical point in time.However, its very outrageous and dismaying that water had become the most scarce resource in some halls,especially the annexes at some point in time,the entire campus.The failure of water to flow has a corresponding effect on the hygiene of washrooms because even cleaners need water to keep the place usable to students.Morever,some halls or their annexes are still battling issues maintenance and renovation especially with the washrooms.This could moreover even serve as a medium where students contract a lot of infections.
Corresponding to this, Water is used by students in maintaining hygienic practices.Students need to wash their clothes,clean their rooms,wash cooking utensils and take their baths.The scarcity or inability to flow regularly correspondingly has the efficacy of affecting hygienic practices among students which does not help.It is heartbreaking when students wake up sometimes and have to be roaming in annexes and other halls for water for their daily life activities.Students cannot continue suffering in addition to hectic academic runs and moreover this situation may sucesssfully affect the physical wellbeing in such a manner that,energy that has to be reserved and relaxed for studying is spent roaming in annexes,and other halls and carrying water to the fifth floors of some annexes.I believe that will be a perfect training for military recruitment but not students who need a condusive mindset to propagate academic execellence.It affects the mental wellbeing also through stress related issues and inability to forcus solely on their academic work.
All student leaders especially the JCRs(Junior Common Room) executives whose responsibility is to communicate this crisis within students to the hall management and the SRC(Student Representative Council) executives) whose role is to serve the welfare and interest of the entire university of Ghana student populace must ensure that their resourcefulness in tackling such issues is highly sensed among students.They cannot continue living like ordinary students while they have have been hounoured and elevated to higher student offices through elections and appointments.The students therefore expect them to use their authority to help them tackle such issues.All stakeholders must be up to task and make sure to create a good impression within their offices to tackle this student related issue and others.
Source:Emmanuel Glover(Concerned Student)
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