Five ideas for a healthy campus

The SU Wellness Centre has announced the five successful teams for the 2015 Champions for a Healthy Campus challenge. This challenge invited students to work in teams to propose projects that contribute to a healthier campus community. Teams had a chance to win five prizes of $5,000 to implement their ideas on campus.

“We were overwhelmed with the response from the campus community for this challenge, and were so impressed by the calibre of projects submitted by student groups,” says Russell Thomson, health promotion co-ordinator at the SU Wellness Centre.

Teams submitted a full project proposal outlining their goals, activities, and budget, and described how the project aligns with the Creating a Healthy Campus Community framework. Projects were evaluated by a selection committee on their contributions to the Healthy Campus framework, their consideration of partnerships and collaborations, their integration of student, staff and faculty engagement, as well as the potential for meaningful impact and sustainability.

Students have the best insights

Julia Weaver, team lead of the successful Campus Community Kitchen idea, expressed her enthusiasm for the challenge: "The Champions for a Healthy Campus challenge allows us to address campus issues such as social isolation and food insecurity that are very important to us as students,” she says. “It will help us implement our Campus Community Kitchen, an initiative that aims to educate students about healthy eating, foster conversations about campus issues, and build community around simple homemade meals."

“This project is ultimately about empowering students to take action on ideas that are important to them,” says Ashley Humeniuk of the SU Wellness Centre. “Students have the best insight into what strategies and initiatives they want to see in place to support their well-being."

The teams will have the support of the SU Wellness Centre but are responsible for setting the overall project direction and carrying the activities through during the 2015-16 academic year.

The five winning projects include:

• Campus 211 — This project aims to provide undergraduate students with access to a comprehensive online list of resources related to common student challenges or concerns.
• Campus Community Kitchen — This project would increase students’ knowledge of nutrition and cooking skills, as well as create a community to reduce isolation by providing an opportunity for students to come together to make and enjoy simple and inexpensive meals.
• Build for Bees — This project engages the wider university community in a student-led, service-learning based project meant to research, envision, design, and build suitable habitats for wild pollinators.
• Break the Silence — This initiative consists of educational scribe videos, peer support promotion, and monthly panel discussions culminating in an Anti-Stigma Summit in March 2016.
• Mobile Self Care Team — The aim of this project is to raise awareness of self-care strategies through diverse and creative activities offered across campus in order to better understand early symptoms of burnout and promote overall mental health.

Visit 2015 Champions for a Healthy Campus for more information about the five successful projects.