A not-for-profit organization, which supports environmental education, has continued to promote environmental health through sanitation awareness and services.
The organization, known as Oando Foundation, established by Oando PLC, to support basic education, access and quality, reached out to the Ijora Badia community for sanitation on Tuesday, January25, 2022, as part of its initiative called ‘Clean Our World’ project.
The sanitation exercise had all the community members in participation, including pupils of Ireti Nursery/primary school which is situated in the community and adopted by the foundation.
The organizers explained to journalists at the event that the Clean Our World project was an initiative of the Oando Foundation , funded by Sumitomo Chemicals, Japan and implemented by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF).
Tonia Uduimo, Programme Manager at Oando Foundation, while speaking about the project noted that it was aimed towards supporting environmental education to help in tackling climate change which is now a global issue.
“Climate change has become a serious issue that we need to tackle globally and we see education as one of the key ways through which we can bring sustainable change in this area and we are catching them young through the schools and children that we are supporting to create the consciousness about environmental responsibility and sustainability through our ‘Clean our World’ project,” Udoimo said.
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She noted that the Ijora community had been in active participation since the commencement of the project and the foundation sees the need to reach out to the community for practical education.
“Ijora is an interesting community with vibrant youths and people who are willing to engage. Their community participation since we started this project has been very encouraging and we see there is a need for this environmental education to be instituted.
“We are here today to practise what we are preaching to help them see the need to keep the environment clean and doing it together creates that consciousness in them,” she added.
The programme manager pointed out that the NCF had a rich history on their work on environmental education and described them as the perfect partners for the project, while also collaborating with African Clean-up Initiative (ACI) which are involved in recycling both at school and community level.
Balikis Balogun, lead environmental education at NCF, stated that the clean-up exercise was aimed at bringing the community to the awareness that cleanliness is next to Godliness and impacting them on environmental protection for a healthy living and recycling their waste.
“We need the environment more than the environment needs us and there is a need to keep the environment clean,” she added.
Balogun stated that Ireti school, which was one the schools adopted by Oando Foundation, could not stand alone without the community, which was a major reason the Clean Our World project was brought to support the community.
Fateye Sunday, one of the stakeholders in Ijora community, expressed delight on the clean-up project, noting that the initiative would continue to keep the community clean for a better living while encouraging the foundation to keep expanding the project.
However, the foundation and its partners provided all working materials with entertainment for the community to make it memorable.
