UCC old students donate to flood victims in Asuogyaman District
A group of University of Cape Coast (UCC) old students, identified as ‘Brethren’, has presented relief items worth GH¢60,000 to victims of the floods occasioned by excessive inflows into the Akosombo Dam.
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The beneficiary communities are in the Asuogyaman District in the Eastern Region and South Dayi District in the Volta Region.
The Executive Secretary of Brethren, Eugene Armah Okyne, led a section of the group to present the items, which included food items such as rice, cooking oil, canned fish, tomato puree and water.
Others are mattresses, used clothing, mosquito coils, insecticide sprays, handheld fumigation sprayers and infrared thermometers.
Gratitude
Members of Parliament (MP) for Asuogyaman, Thomas Nyarko Ampem, and that of South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, received the items on behalf of the chiefs and people.
Both MPs expressed their gratitude to the UCC Brethren for sparing their resources to mobilise and support them in their dire situation.
The UCC Brethren Project Coordinator, Isaac Noble Adomako, also expressed his joy for the ability of his colleagues to rise to the call to support a worthy cause.
He added his voice to calls on all other organisations to throw in their bit to lessen the burden on the victims.
Mr Adomako also challenged authorities to work assiduously to prevent such occurrences in the future.
UCC Brethren
The UCC Brethren Group is made up of alumni of UCC, with varied professional backgrounds dotted across the globe.
They stay connected virtually, not to network only but also to give back to society where the need arises.
For them, being there for a brother and impacting communities are part of their call to duty.
The Volta River Authority (VRA) on September 15, 2023, began controlled spilling at the Akosombo and Kpong dams as a result of too much water in both reservoirs.
A rough estimate of 26,000 people, as of October 17, 2023, had been displaced as a result of the spillage.
Since the construction of the Akosombo Dam, which receives water from six separate tributaries, this is the largest magnitude of displacement and volume recorded.
The spilling was necessitated by the fact that the water level in the dams’ reservoirs had reached their safe operating level at this time of the year; thus, the need to release water from the reservoirs to make room to be able to accommodate incoming flows.
Without overflowing, the water might topple the dam, jeopardising its structural integrity.
In the event, many communities in about eight districts in three regions, namely Asuogyaman, Shai Osudoku, the North Tongu, Central Tongu, South Tongu, Anlo, Ada East districts and Keta and Ketu South municipals, got various degrees of flooding, displacing about 39,000 people, with submerged farmlands as cages for aquaculture on the Volta Lake were washed away.
The three Tongu districts were the worst affected directly resulting from the spillages.