Toowoomba Region kids needed to help create Healthy Towns

Toowoomba Region children and their parents or guardians have a unique chance to help the environment and make whole communities healthier by participating in a pilot project designed to highlight opportunities to create safe ways to travel on foot or bike to school, parks and everyday places.

According to the Healthy Towns project lead, University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Associate Professor Tracy Kolbe-Alexander, this project will give children a ‘voice’ to let us know what helps or hinders their choice to walk or cycle.

Toowoomba Region Mayor Paul Antonio said Toowoomba Regional Council (TRC) was pleased to join forces with USQ, Safer Toowoomba Regional Partnerships (Obesity Prevention Focus Group), Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise (TSBE) and the Darling Downs and West Moreton PHN, and to partner with the Stanford University Our Voice initiative, to implement the project across the Toowoomba Region.

“Early in this Council term, I said one of Council’s main goals was to improve the health of our residents by encouraging the community to be more active,” Mayor Antonio said.

“I’m encouraged by projects such as the Healthy Towns initiative, which is calling on children and their families to participate in a project that is aimed at making life easier for residents to incorporate walking, cycling and more physical activity in their daily routines.”

Associate Professor Kolbe-Alexander said the collective project would involve participants taking discovery walks using the Our Voice Discovery app, to record photos and provide comments describing things that make it easier or harder to travel by foot or bike to school, parks and other locations.

STRP Obesity Prevention Focus Group chair Shirley-Anne Gardiner said this initiative was a fantastic ‘grass roots’ approach that addressed the social determinants of health and encouraged the community to identify barriers to physical activity.

TRC Infrastructure Services portfolio leader and Regional Active and Public Transport Advisory Committee chair Cr Melissa Taylor said the individuals who would become involved in the project were ideally placed to know the best ways to travel safely on foot or by bike in their respective communities.

“The project will collect their ideas and support analysis of their findings to find ways to encourage more people to travel by bike or on foot for their daily commute as well as for recreation,” Cr Taylor said.

Associate Professor Kolbe-Alexander said the project needed 10 children in Year 5 (and one parent/guardian each) from each of the following areas: • Highfields, • Cambooya, • Wilsonton, • Harristown, and • Oakey.

Project participants will: • Be trained as a ‘citizen scientist’, • Download the Our Voice Discovery Tool app on their smartphone, • Take a ‘discovery walk’ and record photos and comments using the Discovery Tool app, describing things that make it easier or harder to be more active, exercise, walk or ride in their neighbourhood, • Join fellow citizen scientists to discuss and analyse findings, and • Present ideas for improvement to local leaders

TRC Parks and Recreation Services portfolio leader Cr Tim McMahon said participants’ use of the app would help identify any barriers or improvements that could be made to help residents lace on their walking shoes or set off on two wheels instead of using cars as a first-choice mode of transport.

Cr McMahon said Council’s Sport, Active Recreation & Healthy Living (SARHL) Plan also supported the project.

“The SARHL Plan, which was adopted by Council in 2019, identifies 214 policy, place and program-based recommendations to support sport, active recreation and healthy living across the Toowoomba Region,” Cr McMahon said.

All project participants will go in the draw to win a Healthy & Active pack valued at $200, including a Fitbit, healthy cookbooks, a backpack, bike equipment and water bottle.

To register or for more details, contact Associate Professor Tracy Kolbe-Alexander at USQ (07 3812 6178), email [email protected] or visit www.tr.qld.gov.au/healthytowns 

Nominations close in early December.