MAESSAH: Organisation To Recruit 600 Volunteers

The Environmental Safety Corps, a Non-Governmental Organisation based in Abuja, said on Thursday that it would recruit 600 volunteers from each state of the federation to implement its sanitation programme tagged “MAESSAH’’.
The Coordinant-General of the organisation, Mr. Emenike Eme, said this in an interview with newsmen.
Eme said that the programme would complement the efforts of the environmental health officers nationwide, which he said, were not adequate in the country.
MAESSAH, according to him, stands for Mass Action for Environmental Sustainability, Sanitation and Hygiene.
According to him, the programme is a grassroots revolution on environmental protection, sanitation and hygiene.
“We are recruiting volunteers, boys and girls and we are gender sensitive  so our targets is to recruit 300 males and 300 females in every state of the federation.
“We all know it today, that most of the diseases and sicknesses that are killing many people is preventable if our environment is clean.
“So, we want to create a situation whereby, there is a mass response and grassroots response to the issues of the environment, it is a collective effort.
“We are looking at the youth, pupils and students both at primary and secondary schools and tertiary institutions.
“What we do with them is that we make them join us as environmental foot soldiers, we impact knowledge on environment into them and we take them out into the communities to impact on larger communities.’’
Eme said the organisation would partner with the Federal Ministry of Environment and Environmental Health Council of Nigeria to increase sanitation coverage in the country.
He said that the NGO had developed strong partnership with the office of the President on Ethics and Value on behaviour modification in schools and some communities.
“The issues of environment violations are matters of behavior; we violate the natural order that is why we have climate change, we have dirty surroundings, we have mosquitoes and all these things coming on.
“We want to correct man’s behaviour, man’s attitudes towards the environment; that is why the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Ethics and value is very important to us.
“In fact, we are more enlightened and focused to see the issues clearly the way they are, that as a matter of fact, environmental violation occurs because of depreciation in value.
“People have lost value of things; people misbehave, environmental misbehaviour is the cause of everything that is happening negatively in the world today.’’
Eme said that the ESCORP provided a platform for active involvement of the Nigerian youths in scientifically designed and articulated programmes that would sustain the environment.