VRA Ladies to spearhead energy conservation campaign
The Volta River Authority (VRA) Ladies Association has embarked on a year-long campaign aimed at ensuring energy conservation and efficiency by electricity consumers.
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The initiative, dubbed: “Energy conservation campaign”, is on the theme: “Conserve power, reduce cost”, and is expected to start in July 2016 and end in June 2016 as part of the association’s contribution to alert consumers to the best energy conservation practices.
It is intended to educate power consumers through various programmes such as forums, talks at churches, markets, schools and walks on the need for energy conservation.
Collective responsibility
At a ceremony in Accra to launch the campaign, the Director of General Services at the VRA, Madam Abla Fiadjoe, said power consumers had a critical role to play in stopping the power challenges the country was facing.
She pointed out that many people thought issues of reliable and sustainable electricity supply lay solely in the hands of power utility providers.
“Generally, people do not understand that how we use power is a major factor in the current challenges we are facing and that we all have to take a collective blame,” she added.
Madam Fiadjoe stressed that the responsibility lay with power consumers to conserve energy, hence the task ahead of the association to change the public psyche.
“Target the children”
She argued that there were different categories of consumers who needed different levels of information to get them to accept the energy conservation message.
Going by the popular saying: “If you want to change the world target children”, she suggested to the association to focus on children for the campaign.
Every country that had the culture of energy conservation achieved that status by targeting children, she said, adding that over the years that group had been ignored.
Through fun materials, energy expert certificate competitions, among other interesting activities, the women could win the heart of the young ones, she noted.
She recalled how various energy conservation campaigns had not been sustained for one reason or another and urged the association to fill the gap and ensure that the campaign was successful.
“Women have influence”
In her address, the President of the association, Mrs Stella Dey, said with their great influence on households, women had the power to control the use of electricity in the home and educate others on how to conserve energy and reduce cost.
She added that the campaign formed part of the objectives of the association to be ambassadors of the authority and participate actively in public educational programmes.
Giving some energy conservation tips, the Technical Training Manager at the VRA, Mrs Sophia Tijani, said it was possible to use far less energy than some consumers were using.
She advised that individuals and organisations use LED bulbs, energy efficiency fridges and electrical appliances to save cost and also energy.
Saving energy and reducing energy usage, she said, created a healthier environment, a better economy and enabled others to have access to electricity.