2020 VGMA Music for Development winner, Gasmilla to embark on sanitation sensitization campaign

Attributed to be one of the forerunners of the viral Azonto genre, Gasmilla is set to embark on a sanitation sensitization campaign in partnership with the Ga East Municipality.

The project titled “Communal Cleanup Festival” would see the “Telemo” hitmaker organize a community clean-up exercise and a kids programme on sanitation to sensitise community members starting from Saturday, October 2, 2021, at Old Ashongman in the Ga East Municipality.

The project seeks to use children as change agents to promote good sanitation practices in line with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision to “Make Accra the Cleanest City in Africa” and advance the “Let’s Make Accra Work” campaign by the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Mr. Henry Quartey.

In an interview with the multiple award-winning musician, he stated that his quest to promote sanitation dates back to his childhood days at Point 205 Agege, a suburb of Dansoman, though was a very clean community, as he grew up, it became filthier by the day.

Gasmilla said he began to realize his childhood dream of seeing his community always clean when he started his music career, noting that the campaign started with the cleaning of the coastal belt but realized the more they carried out the exercise, the more filth emerged at the shores.

He said all the drains were channeled into the sea, while residents were also engaged in the practice of piling up refuse and throwing them into the drains whenever it rained.

Hence the constant filth at the shores.

He revealed that he was touched by this situation and therefore initiated the project which focuses on the children in schools and communities as the agents to cause the needed change in society, particularly with sanitation practices.

“When you tell a kid don’t put something here or at point ‘A’ and you do put it there, the kid will tell you, ‘but dad you told me not to put it here’ and that’s how they police us into doing the right things,” he opined.

Gasmilla, accompanied by Candy Laryea, his Personal Assistant, called on the Municipal Coordinating Director (MCD), Mrs. Vera Akuffo-Mante, and some Municipal officers, on Tuesday, 28th September 2021, to introduce and discuss the implementation of the project in the Municipality.

Briefing the officials, Gasmilla said the project started in 2015 with the first phase implementation taking place at Jamestown, Osu, La, Teshie, and Nungua.

He said, this year, the project had been implemented in six communities; namely, Jamestown, Osu, Kpone, Teshie, La, and Pokuase, with Old Ashongman in the Ga East Municipality set to become the seventh community.

The MCD, Mrs. Vera Akuffo-Mante, on behalf of the Assembly and the Education Directorate, thanked Gasmilla and his team for considering Ga East and selecting Old Ashongman as the destination for the next activities under the project.

She pledged the full support of the Assembly towards the project to ensure it is successfully organised.Related Articles: