WOODWORKERS UNION DONATES TO KOKOAGO (PAGE 36)

THE Timber and Woodworkers Union of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has presented building materials worth GH¢15,000 to the chiefs and people of Kokoago, a deprived farming community in the Techiman municipality.
The items, which included 20 bags of cement, four packets of roofing sheets and nails, as well as GH¢100 cash are meant to assist the community to rebuild a three-classroom block for the lower primary of the Local/Authority (L/A) Basic School which collapsed during a rainstorm that hit the community two weeks ago.
The donation coincided with a tree-planting exercise organised by the union in collaboration with the Techiman Traditional Council as part of activities marking this year’s World Environment Day and also to inculcate the habit of tree planting in the people.
Presenting the items at a brief ceremony, Mr Joshua Ansah, the General Secretary of the Union, said the donation formed part of the union’s social responsibility towards communities in which the union had forest plantations.
He expressed the hope that the gesture would go a long way to assist the community to reconstruct the school’s building to enable the children to go back to school.
Mr Ansah stated that as part of efforts to restore the country’s vegetative cover, the union in association with the Techiman Traditional Council, had planted teak and other species of trees covering 600 acres in the Kokoago community.
He said the move was to help sustain the wood industry, reduce the effects of climatic change on agriculture, generate employment for the local people and help reduce poverty.
Mr Ansah called for co-operation from the local people to protect the plantation, which, he said, would provide some economic benefit for the people when the time came for harvesting.
Nana Owusu Gyare II, the Akwamuhene of the Techiman Traditional Area and Coordinator for the forest plantation project, said the collaboration between the traditional council and the union was to help protect the environment and also recover the country’s depleted forests.
He urged the people to plant trees to serve as windbreaks.
Nana Haruna Kyeremeh, the Odikro of Kokoago, expressed gratitude to the union for the gesture, which he described as timely and pledged their cooperation to the success of the project.