Why we want to carry out this project? Why is it important to us? Where did the idea come from?
Having healthy lifestyles at heart, we understand the importance of ‘starting them young’. Schools nowadays in Malta are a rich multinational community with several nationalities. We want to promote a healthy lifestyle amongst all communities by delivering regular talks to parents, staff and pupils. The same will be done with sports clubs where we spend most of our free time. Exercise without proper nutrition will yield limited results. Our coach is always saying that we do not eat ‘proper food’. We have learnt to make healthy choices and we want to help future generations start earlier than we did.
What change we want to achieve with our project? Which specific groups we target? How our project benefit our local community?
We want children to start eating proper food especially at school where teachers can control the situation better and in sports clubs where sports coaches can be very influential in the lives of young sportsman and women . There are healthy food policies in schools but they are not always implemented.
By promoting its contents we want to:
– educate parents to prepare proper lunches
– children to appreciate the value of healthy food
– motivate teachers to enforce the policy
Sports clubs will be encouraged to develop their own healthy food policies too with our help if they need. Our target group are schools and sports clubs around Malta. In this way, we hope our local community will eat less fast food and focus on wholesome food resulting in less illnesses such as diabetes, heart attacks, high blood pressure and unhealthy gums which are all very common in Malta. This will result in better mental health, more confidence and less anxieties. We believe a healthy mind needs a healthy body. We will provide examples, how to prepare healthy snacks for school children to show that healthy food is not necessarily more expensive but needs planning.
This project will bring together young people from all walks of life with a common goal – use our free time to promote healthy living amongst different nationalities in Maltese schools. In this way we can reach out to families who may not have been exposed to healthy diets and healthy ways of cooking. This way our project is linked to the objectives of the European Solidarity Corps.
Digital tools are part and parcel of this project.
We will build a mobile app to aid communication, education and making healthy choices, leading to a healthy lifestyle. We will integrate the various cultures there are in schools to promote inclusion and make sure the information we generate is accessible to all by making it available online especially for parents who cannot attend physically in school during workshops we will deliver. All throughout we will use environment friendly products and promote the 3 Rs – Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. We will work in collaboration with Ecoschools in this regard.
Project management
General coordination between the members, distribution of tasks and responsibilities, budget and time management, communication etc.
In our team we have medical doctor, project manager, mathematician, journalist, IT engineer, sport and fitness coach and more. We are prepared to design and complete the following tasks that are required to run and complete a successful project:
– plan health talk sessions and deliver them
– organize a timetable and co-ordinate with schools and sports club to hold regular monthly sessions throughout the duration of the project
– do the budgeting
– communication, dissemination of results, publication of articles on newspapers and updating of website and Facebook page
– keep everything well organized
– of course, we will also help each other and work as a team using digital tools effectively
Our coach will monitor and co-ordinate our work. Being a coach himself, he will deliver sessions too and invite guest speakers online, occasionally.
Activities in chronological order, as we will carry out them. Segmented into different phases: preparation, implementation, evaluation, sharing of results.
Month Activity(ies)
- Month 1 Planning and organizing the activities Developing the mobile App, promoting the project
- Month 2 Contacting schools and sports clubs to explain the project, build partnership and plan events, date, time, location, type, etc. Start to build list for our newsletter
- Month 3 Talks in schools and sports clubs Promote healthy food policies in schools and sports clubs
- Month 4 Talks in schools and sports clubs Sharing recipes and shopping tips, promoting local produce
- Month 5 Nutrition Workshops in schools and sports clubs by Nutrition specialists
- Month 6 Nutrition Workshops in schools and sports clubs by Nutrition specialists targeting children
- Month 7 Workshops about using the healthy lifestyle App
- Month 8 Nutrition Workshops in schools and sports clubs Mid-term evaluation Spot checks in schools and clubs to check snacks eaten by children and celebrate good practice by taking photos of healthy snacks and sharing with others.
- Month 9 Workshops in schools and sports clubs Nutrition specialists targeting educators
- Month 10 Workshops in schools and sports clubs Nutrition specialists targeting parents
- Month 11 Collecting feedback from participants
- Month 12 Evaluation and dissemination of results
How we will make our project visible to others who are not involved in the project?
We will use social media, the school and club website and promotional material to make our project visible. We will use the NGO website and Facebook page as well as a local newspaper to make sure we reach as many people as possible.
How we will assess if we have achieved what we have planned and if our project has been a success? Which methods and tools we will use for this purpose?
We will collect feedback from all those involved in the project. Teachers and coaches will be expected to observe and changes and we will collect data through online questionnaires to check that healthy food policies have been introduced or are being enforced better.
How we will share the results of our project and with whom?
The project results are of special interest to the management of the schools and clubs but also to the public in general. Same as with visibility, we will use social media, the school and club website and promotional material to make our project visible. We will use the NGO website and Facebook page as well as a local newspaper to make sure we reach as many people as possible. We send out regular newsletter, with content our partners can easily can share in their circle of network.
What we will do to make sure that our project continues to have effects also after it ends?
We will encourage sports clubs to develop healthy food policies by offering to help them devise it ourselves. Schools already have these policies in place but after the project we hope there will be more awareness and enforcement or rather, improved healthy habits.
