January 2015 : Healthy schools, health for you!

“Healthy schools” is a project from the Conseil Jeunesse in collaboration with Réso-Santé, a group of health professionals. It aims to involve school personnel, students and the francophone community in the goal of setting up initiatives that promote a daily healthy lifestyle. Between October and December 2014, a student comity was created at l’École des Pionniers de Maillardville (Port Coquitlam) and at Côte-du-soleil (Powell River). These commities, formed with students from grades 7 to 12, organise various and diverse activities, with their objective being the adoption of healthy lifestyles in their schools.

It is evident these days that, overall, students do not eat very well and do not always have access to better nutrition or to proper information about it. It is therefore essential and exciting for the Conseil Jeunesse to have the opportunity to develop this project in the francophone schools of British Colombia. As Claudya Leclerc, a member of the student comity at l’École des Pionniers, comfortingly says: “It is really great for us to have this healthy schools opportunity at our school”. As its first activity, on December 3rd and 4th, the comity at École des Pionniers offered various kinds of cereal bars to students at their school. Made by the comity after school, they were distributed to the students at lunch the next day.

At Côte-du-soleil, the start of the school year was a little difficult because one of their grade 7 students, Anakin, was the victim of a serious car accident which put him into a coma for several weeks. The student comity, formed with students from grades 7 to 9, supported each other in this hard time by organising a Christmas dinner on December 10th, 2014. Their goal? To raise as many funds as possible for their fellow student who had recently come out of the coma. The students, with the support of the school’s personnel, raised over 1000$ for Anakin. There was a strong sense of solidarity and of empathy as Oscar and Nicolo, two members of the comity’s words made clear: “We miss him a lot and we can’t wait to see him again!”. After the winter break, both comities will organise more activities in order for the habit of eating healthy to not only be present in their school life, but to be present in each student’s choices and lifestyles.

To know more, you can check out our website or contact Sophie from the Conseil Jeunesse.