Curious Minds, UNICEF host symposium on negative impact of lead

Youth-led advocacy and non for profit group Curious Minds Ghana in partnership with the health division of UNICEF Ghana and Pure Earth have organised a one-day seminar on the effects of lead on our bodies and the environment. In a symposium organised as part of the lead awareness week at the auditorium of the Ghana Institute of Journalism, facilitators took the participants through the items that contain lead, what it does to our bodies and the environment, and also how we can minimize the use of the lead and its effects on the environment. Mr. Kingsley Obeng-Kyereh who welcomed patrons to the event advised strongly that, the participants should be good ambassadors and extend the conversation of the effects of lead to those who are not present, as by so doing, we can eradicate the various harmful effects that are associated with the use of lead, especially in our cooking utensils. "As youth leaders and participants of this lead awareness creation seminar, we owe it a duty to ourselves and the environment to share the word and champion the advocacy to help prevent the harmful effects of the use of lead, it is in this advocacy that we can achieve the needed results, hence I want to urge all of us here to take it upon ourselves to lead the lead awareness creation charge," he said. Dr. Edith Clarke of UNICEF Ghana also admonished participants to be conscious of the various materials that have lead in them in the environments we find ourselves. "It is important to note we are almost all the time surrounded by lead, in our cooking utensils, paint, and sometimes drinking water so this training is aimed at creating awareness of the effect of lead on us and to make us more conscious of it," she added. Mr. Wilson Baaku also took participants through a 30-minute presentation on the sources of lead, where they end up, and its impact on the environment and human beings. He articulated that, the activities of the scrap dealers were a great source of worry since they create a large amount of lead. Participants of this one-day seminar were drawn from various levels of the educational ladder seeing junior high schools like Alpha Star Academy, and Curious Minds International School, while hosting tertiary students from the Ghana institute of journalism. In all about 300 students participated in this value-laden seminar aimed at consciously reducing the use of lead