BCH celebrates 12 months of ‘Active OUR Way’

We are pleased to share that Bellarine Community Health (BCH) has celebrated the first anniversary of their local, student led program ‘Active OUR Way’.

The ‘Active OUR Way’ program is a partnership project with St Leonards, Leopold and Portarlington Primary Schools.

The BCH Healthy and Connected Communities team (HCCT) heard from more than 430 students from across the three schools, running energy-filled student design workshops. Students helped to design their own fun, active living activities and programs.

Take a look at a short video recently created: AOW Summary Video

Over 800 students were involved in actions. Including, more than 300 students who joined learn to snorkel and learn to skate programs with most of the students having never tried those activities before. After the sessions, most students said they felt more confident to try snorkelling or skating again.

“I enjoyed snorkelling a lot,” said a St Leonards Primary student. “I saw lots of different sea creatures and it was a great experience for me. It was my first time.” Another said, “It was amazing. Getting to breathe while my head was underwater and seeing a banjo shark.”

As part of the snorkel program students received a free snorkel set to keep practicing snorkelling with their families.

Students from St Leonards Primary School were supported to become ‘Active OUR Way Student Champions’ within their school as a leadership group for 2023.

Upcoming actions:

Over the next year, we will continue to support our three AOW communities.

We are currently recruiting AOW Student Champions for 2024 for St Leonards Primary School.

Two schools recently received a Landcare grant to run their snorkel program in 2024 through a ‘Land, Sea & Me – Bellarine Environmental Health & Wellbeing Program.

The Active OUR Way project was supported by a VicHealth – Healthy Futures JumpStart grant in 2022, which allowed us to launch this project.

For more information visit: Be Active – Bellarine Community Health (bch.org.au)

BCH celebrates 12 months of ‘Active OUR Way’