The Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra, OCHA Brigade, has announced plans to strengthen collaboration with the National Association of Nigerian Students through the revival of OCHA–NANS units in higher institutions across Anambra State.
The initiative is aimed at improving sanitation, environmental safety, and general welfare of students, particularly those living in off-campus hostels where unhealthy conditions have continued to pose serious public health concerns.
The plan was disclosed in Awka during a courtesy visit by a delegation of the National Association of Nigerian Students, led by the National Clerk of the Senate, Comrade Daniel Vyonku, to the Managing Director of the OCHA Brigade, Comrade Celestine Anere. During the visit, the students’ body conferred on Anere the honour of Lifetime Membership and Patron of NANS.
The OCHA Brigade boss reiterated its commitment to addressing environmental challenges in students communities, noting that poor sanitation in hostel areas affects not only students but the wider society which the agency also identified weak maintenance culture by some landlords and exploitative practices by house agents as major contributors to unhealthy living environments.
The NANS delegation called for the extension of OCHA Brigade activities to student-populated areas, including major universities in the state, and highlighted poor hygiene and exploitation by landlords as key challenges affecting students’ academic performance and advocated strict regulation of house agents, provision of standard waste disposal facilities in hostels, deployment of mobile courts where necessary, and the engagement of students as environmental health ambassadors.
