A 1st in Our Region: Superior North Greenstone Healthy Kids Community Charter
NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO – December 19th, 2016 the Superior North Greenstone Healthy Kids Community Challenge officially launched the Superior North Greenstone Healthy Kids Community Charter. The Charter is the first of its kind in the region. It is also the first charter developed by the Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) across Ontario!
The Superior North Greenstone HKCC has been working in partnership with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit to bring the Healthy Kids Community Charter to life. Encouraging healthy behaviours during childhood and creating environments that support health is important to ensure children grow into healthy adults. Supporting children’s health and well-being is also an important investment; it can reduce future health care costs for communities.
“Our vision is that we, as a region, are committed to improve the health and well-being of the children in our communities.” States Colleen Kjellman, Executive Director at Brass Bell and Co-Chair on the HKCC Steering Committee, “Data shows the vulnerability of our children in physical health and well-being is increasing across the region at alarming rates. We want our children to thrive, not just get by!”
The Superior North Greenstone Healthy Kids Community Charter is a call for action and an engagement tool. It aims to create opportunities and encourage advocacy to improve health for all children in Superior North Greenstone. The Superior North Greenstone Healthy Kids Community Charter outlines eight guiding principles across four key areas that are important to children’s health.
At the Charter launch, The Town of Marathon pledged to support the Charter. This marked the first of hopefully many organizations to show their support for the Charter in our region. Our hope is for organizations across the Superior North Greenstone region to adopt the Healthy Kids Community Charter to support child health across all sectors.
Charter events will continue across the region in 2017 to promote local organizations and groups to pledge to support the Charter and join in the effort to promote children’s health. Working together we can create a community and a region that makes it easy for children to lead healthier lives. It does take a village to raise a healthy child.
