A playful initiative is aiming to create lifelong healthy habits for young Southlanders.
Let’s Play Southland is the result of a collaborative effort between Healthy Families Invercargill, ILT Stadium Southland, Early Childhood Education, Murihiku marae and various health organisations.
The concept, which recently received $5500 funding from the Invercargill Licensing Trust, will see Let’s Play Southland toolkits established at both ILT Stadium Southland and Murihiku marae for use by early childhood centres and the public from February.
Each toolkit will feature a range of play equipment, activity cards and online video guides to enable teachers or families to deliver quality physical activity sessions for toddlers and pre-schoolers.
“Having fun really is the best way to learn and we’re delighted to support another innovative idea which will engage youngsters in our city and ultimately provide a platform for teaching healthy habits,” Trust chairman Alan Dennis said.
Sport Southland chief executive and Healthy Families Invercargill Leadership Group chairman Brendon McDermott said the project would be an asset for the community.
Playing is incredibly important to help children develop and practice life skills. Not only does it provide opportunities to be physically active, but it also encourages creativity and innovation, improves social and emotional connection, improves a child’s understanding of their relationship with their environment and improves resilience, independence and leadership.
“We need to invest in the 0-5 age group and recognise that’s the most impressionable age to foster lifelong physical activity. There is a lot of evidence which shows improving motor skills at a young age is key to children developing better fitness levels later in life. We hope this will be a stepping stone to more things,” he said.
“In terms of health prevention, it’s a huge area we need to be putting more resource and time into. Further down the road this will have a very positive impact.”
McDermott applauded the collaborative approach which proved instrumental in making the initiative a reality.
“This is the result of many parties working together. Over the past 18 months, we’ve spoken in-depth to early childhood centres who identified not only a lack of existing professional activity programmes but also the required expertise to develop them internally,” McDermott said.
“Our focus was to work with them to empower teachers and whanau to make healthy sustainable changes and now they have co-designed a model best suited to their community’s needs which is fantastic.”
ILT Stadium Southland was committed to providing a reduced venue hire rate to centres during school hours.
“In terms of role-modelling, this is the place where you see athletes and that’s sure to leave an impression on their young brains and inspire them,” McDermott said.
ILT Stadium Southland general manager Nigel Skelt was “incredibly excited” to see the concept launched.
“You’re never too young to experience our stadium and this enables us to connect with and support another sector of our community in a positive way,” he said.