Emerson School Captains Danielle Barnett and Jean Paul Nokiah with City of Greater Dandenong mayor Jim Memeti at the opening of the Drug Education and Wellbeing expo.By Lia Bichel
STUDENTS at Emerson School received a valuable lesson in health and safety at the school’s recent Drug Education and Wellbeing expo.
Greater Dandenong mayor Jim Memeti opened the event, which was attended by students and staff, community agencies from Greater Dandenong and the City of Casey, and Year 9 Dandenong High School students.
Drug education and health teacher Pamela Richardson said the expo aimed to teach students and visitors about the benefits of healthy lifestyle and how to achieve it.
“(This can be done) by making healthy food and exercise choices, caring for yourself through good hygiene and knowing where to go for information that you may need to support this,” she said.
At the event, students created a large colourful map displaying different countries they were from and offered guests delicious samples of food representing their culture.
Ms Richardson said the students also had the opportunity to try exercise through demonstrations of dance aerobics Zumba, test their fitness levels, discuss what happiness meant to them, talk about responsible serving of alcohol, meet other students from different schools and take leadership roles in hosting various stalls.
Ms Richardson said both schools hope to foster their new relationship for mutual learning and benefit.
“Having the Dandenong students take part has made an inroad for future connections with both our school communities,” she said.
“Drug education supports the research that shows students who are connected to a positive community environment are less likely to put themselves at risk with drug taking.”
The expo was funded by the state School Community Approaches to Drug Education Project 2010 (SCADE).
