Ghana needs more awareness on disaster risk management – GAYO to govt

The Programs Officer for Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), Miss Betty Osei Bonsu has called on government to create and intensify campaigns on disaster risk reduction in the country.

According to her, citizens need to understand the existence of all-natural disasters.

She said creating awareness about disasters will go a long way to help reduce the rate occurrences on the citizenry and the country at large.

Speaking to the media at the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction Quiz Competition held in Accra, Miss Osei Bonsu said the competition was organised to create awareness on disaster risk reduction since most Ghanaians think occurrences such as floods are natural which she said is untrue.

“Government has to create more awareness about these disasters and that is what we at GAYO in collaboration Ghana National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), Africa Youth Advisory Board for Disaster Risk Reduction (AYARB_DRR) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have started through the quizzes.

“We had flooding in the Northern Sector and these are things people think are natural occurrences but they are not. They are things induced by humans through littering and clogging of gutters etc. So it is time for us to create awareness that disasters are real and its risks are real”, she said.

Miss Osei Bonsu said GAYO has taken it upon itself to educate the youth in order to raise a generation who are conscious of disasters and its effects.