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• Green Flag Award helps to tackle obesity issues

• Date:

  12th December 2006

• Contact:

  Sarah Egerton

• Organisation:

  The Civic Trust

Youngsters are getting fit and active at Morgan Jones Park in Caerphilly thanks to a particular initiative which was triggered by the approach of the County Council’s parks department to a Green Flag Award.

To tackle the increasing problem of childhood obesity, an initiative in Wales entitled the ‘Green Gym fit4fun programme’ has been introduced to engage youngsters through participation in alternative types of physical activity.

With this in mind, and aware that community participation is a key feature of success within the Green Flag Award scheme, proactive management created the post of an Urban Environment Awareness Coordinator to support the Green Flag initiative within the County Borough. Based in Morgan Jones Park, Dave Beveridge links with local groups, schools and volunteers to encourage greater community involvement in the park.

Working with the Councils Health Development team, Dave has implemented the Green Gym fit4fun programme within Morgan Jones Park, working with a group of local children who suffer problems of obesity that restricts their ability to join in sports with others.

Dave Beveridge, who is a wildlife expert, began taking the youngsters on various activity sessions combining environmental improvements to increase biodiversity with healthy exercise. The first project was creating pools in the local river to encourage wildlife – the climax of which involved the team building an oversize dam and taking great joy in demolishing it.

A Knotweed removal day was organised that included beating the giant weed to the ground. The youngsters did this for an hour solid and had such fun - only stopping when they were told they had to go home. The converted participants then complained they were enjoying themselves so much they wanted to stay all day! Wildlife walks were also greeted with equal enthusiasm.

Helen Masters, Health Development Officer and manager of the project, says: “These events have been a huge success. After each activity, the children feedback as to how they found each session. The feedback obtained was very impressive - they ALL enjoyed the sessions immensely.

“These children suffer from low self esteem, low functional capacity and mobility problems, which stops them from joining in sports with their peers. I tried to develop and implement a diverse range of activities for the children and their families to ‘taste’ throughout this 12 week programme, but nothing comes close to capturing their imagination as much as these activity sessions.

“Being non competitive and the fact the children can all work at their own pace and have a lot of fun seems to be the reasons as to why these sessions are so well liked. With the world as it is, it is brilliant to see children being allowed to be children.”

A new 12 week programme will begin in January 2007 as this exciting initiative looks set to become an integral part of changing these children and their families’ lives for the better.

All of this positive activity has generated interest further afield - the BBC recently filmed a new wildlife programme at Morgan Jones Park with Dave Beveridge helping the presenter, Maggot, of Big Brother fame, to build hibernation/breeding habitats for grass snakes on the soon to be developed Forest School area in the park.

John Ridgewell, Parks Business Development Manager at Caerphilly County Borough Council adds: “Although we only have one Green Flag park at present, the Green Flag Award criteria is now used as the template for our parks strategy.

“The scheme now has internal political support and two further parks have been identified for development to the stage of Green Flag submission. Dave’s role and the work he does is crucial to this plan and none of this would have happened without the Green Flag Award programme.”