Youth Action for health
Year 7 students researching their community as part of Youth Action
A new initiative is set to empower young migrants through research projects to connect with their local community and incorporate a healthy and active lifestyle into their daily life.
Youth Action aims to identify and address how and why young people choose whether or not to participate in physical activity within their school and their wider communities.
The program is a collaboration between Monash University, schools in greater Melbourne, the Pratt Foundation, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Sport Without Borders and the Australian Multicultural Foundation.
Monash University researcher Dr Justen O’Connor from the Faculty of Education said the project incorporates a learning-through-research approach for young Australians.
“This project offers a departure from traditional approaches that often involve outside agencies providing activity opportunities that are top-down, designed by adults, and often involve an organised sports focus, while addressing only one or two barriers,” Dr O’Connor said.
“Youth Action aims to help students from migrant and refugee backgrounds identify and overcome barriers that might stop them leading a healthy, active lifestyle within their new community.
“It asks students to explore their own active lives, collect information and develop strategies that can be adopted by community stakeholders through a partnership arrangement.”
Keysborough Secondary College is the first high school to have Youth Action integrated into their curriculum. This integration opens up new areas for students to explore incorporating sport and physical and activity in their routines and draws on a range of information and communications technology, numeracy and literacy skills to do so.
Youth Action, developed by Dr O’Connor, Dr Ruth Jeanes and Dr Laura Alfrey from the Sport and Physical Activity Research group in the Faculty of Education, allows the students work with teachers and community groups to gain a deeper understanding of issues affecting participation in their local community, before developing a range of recommendations to overcome barriers.
“Through this process, the students become the agents of change rather than passive, voiceless participants,” Dr O’Connor said.
“The students are able to identify personal issues and concerns as they undertake their own research project.”
“Ultimately the aim of the Youth Action project is to educate young people in a way that is not only meaningful but highlights how obtaining a healthy, active lifestyle is not a simple individual decision, but rather is influenced by a range of factors, some of which are beyond their immediate control.”
The Youth Action program at Keysborough Secondary College will run for the month of June, culminating with student presentations of their research findings to family, school and community representatives on Wednesday 27 June.