Coordinators of the School Health Education Reinforcement Programme (SHERP) in the Ho Municipality have reaffirmed their commitment to providing safe food to ensure healthy learners.
To them, safe food was crucial for maintaining good health of schoolchildren particularly, by preventing foodborne illness that could manifest as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and fever.
The commitment was made during a day’s workshop on food safety organised by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), Volta/Oti regions, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations for some 80 school-based SHERP coordinators drawn from the municipality.
The workshop formed part of activities to mark the region’s celebration of World Food Safety Day, set aside to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, with this year’s theme being, “Food Safety: Science in Action.”
It sensitised participants on keeping clean, separating raw and cooked food, cooking and reheating well, keeping food at safe temperatures and, using wholesome raw materials and buying from clean areas.
Mrs Helen Osei, Ho Municipal SHERP Coordinator in an interview with Ghana News Agency, expressed gratitude for the workshop, saying, the knowledge gained was enormous and that she would supervise actions in the various schools across the municipality to ensure learners were healthy.
“We thank everybody – the organisers and facilitators in particular. The knowledge gained will go a long way to enhance our practices and contribute to the good work that our teachers are doing to promote safe food environment to produce learners who will contribute to the development of this country.”
The FDA earlier on Wednesday, October 1, took their training on safe food to the market after having engaged street food vendors the previous day.
Mr Gordon Akurugu, Volta Regional Head of FDA, explained that the 2025 commemoration had been decentralised (celebrated region by region) and to achieve the needed impact, his office reached out to food safety value chain actors.
“We realised that there was the need to bring people who matter in food safety. So, we brought street food vendors and did training for them. We went to the market, did training and we brought SHERP coordinators today because they’re in the schools and take care of the health of the learners.
“These SHERP coordinators have been given full understanding of food safety ethics and food safety practices and they’re to go back and ensure vendors within the premises of their schools sell safe food to the students.”
He disclosed that his office would continue with an ongoing exercise to inspect and issue permits to schools and street food vendors, and hinted of visiting markets as Christmas approached to ensure consumers buy safe food.
GNA
