Initiative strives to make Aurora residents more active
YorkRegion.com
Aug. 6, 2015
Teresa Latchford
A townwide initiative aims to activate Aurora.
Over 40 community leaders have come together from a number of sectors to put together a plan to address the negative impacts of sedentary lifestyles such as childhood obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, project organizer and former Sport Aurora president Ron Weese said.
“The big problem this world has is 80 per cent of children don’t develop the skills needed early on to competently or confidently join a team or organized sport,” he said. “Many adults aren’t active for a number of reasons and this will help them get back into moving by providing the right support in the community.”
The initiative fits right in to an existing vision of having Aurora become Canada’s most active community by 2020.
With support from a number of sectors in the community including health professionals, school boards, early childhood educators, seniors groups and organizations such as Sport Aurora, which brings a number of community sporting organizations together under one roof, the hope is to tackle the lack of physical activity through education and appropriate programming.
“We want to be all inclusive because sport and activity has become an important part of Aurora,” he said, pointing out this has been declared Year of Sport in Aurora and the town is currently creating its first sport master plan. “We want to get everyone from early childhood to seniors active.”
Activate Aurora will also look at capacity building in the community, he added. For example, many ice rinks in town lay dormant during the day and Weese wants to explore the possibility of having the recreation facilities used more by local school children during those times. Building capacity could also mean training parents who volunteer in schools to deliver fundamental movement and physical literacy programing to students.
While groundwork for the main projects have been laid under the initiative, Weese and others hope the initiative will continue long after the projects are complete.
The initiative includes seven projects.
1. Play day – an event to be held in October that will bring 600 grades 3 and 4 students from five schools to learn about fundamental movement and physical literacy through play on the ice, in the pool, gymnasium and outdoor fields. Attending parents will receive information on the importance of physical literacy in school and at home and teachers will learn from supervising the physical activities.
2. Quality daily physical activity program – a mentor coach will be placed in five elementary schools to assist and mentor teachers in the delivery of physical activity during the school day in all grades. Physical literacy will also be monitored over the 12-week period to document progress.
3. Mini-summit – Bringing together professionals from schools, early childhood education, municipal recreation and seniors to Seneca College for a one-day program highlighting awareness, interest and delivery skills along with the ability to increase activity levels within their sectors.
4. Fundamental movement skills and physical literacy training – to increase the capacity of the system, volunteers will be trained and certified so they can deliver the play day programing within their own organizations and schools.
5. Communication project – to spread the word to the public about the issues associated with inactivity and proposing solutions.
6. Safe walk to school program – help teachers and parents build a culture of physical activity by restoring walking to school as a safe and beneficial activity.
7. Healthy eating for kids program – designed to help support parents provide appropriate nutrition for their children.
For more information, visit beactiveaurora.ca.
