This term the Year 12 NCEA Health class have been running their Health Promotion Campaigns for enhancing wellbeing within the community. We had three groups in the class which ran three different campaigns after identifying different wellbeing needs for different groups of the SPL community. 

SPL Male Mental Health Week 

In Week 7 Compton Purcell, Jackson Hohaia, Karlos Langton and Nevaeh Mana ran an SPL Male Mental Health Awareness Week. They organised a mental health speaker; Allenzo Tamatoa, to come in and speak to Year 11-13 students about reducing the stigma of male mental health and reaching out for support when needed. The Year level Deans ran mental health awareness workshops with Year 7-10 and the boys also organised several lunchtime activities including a chill-out zone with mindfulness activities and a mental health quiz and art competition. Watch this space for an SPL Mental Health Instagram handle created by the boys which will be run by our school counsellor providing another platform for our young men to access important information about mental health for young men.

Well done to Pharell Hughes, Roman Fruean and Gianni Williams-Fotu for their entries for the Art competition. Gianni Williams-Fotu was awarded 1st Place for his Male Mental Health poster and this will be displayed around the school and all three posters will be displayed in the Health Classroom. 

Nutrition and Physical Wellbeing 

Noah Hetutu-Davis, Braydon Sapolu, Ashton Smith and Psalms Isoua organised for the Heart Foundation to come into St Paul's College on Thursday 7 September. The Heart Foundation Pacific Beats Team led a really informative two hour session on Nutrition. Also watch this space for the boy's home-workout videos for the community which will be released by the end of term as part of their campaign.

Anti-Mocking and Bullying 

Waka Tate, Micah Samuela, Ben Kaufusi, Ikhan Epati-Faifua and Steven Moala have been running an anti-mocking and anti-bullying campaign with the Year 7 and 8 students this term. They have been leading sessions in the Years 7 and 8 year level assembly every fortnight and have delivered three 50 minute workshops for Year 7 students and three 50 minute workshops for Year 8. These workshops taught the students the difference between banter, mocking and bullying and addressed the harm that mocking and bullying can have on an individual's Hauora. They discussed and worked on strategies with the boys to develop assertive skills to be able to deal with situations of mocking or bullying in a constructive way and how to be an upstander.

I am very proud of the Year 12 Health students who have worked on really important aspects of wellbeing for our St Paul's College community of students and whānau and all three campaigns of health promotion have the potential to be developed further and built upon next year and in the years to come. Well done Year 12 for starting such great initiatives.

Mrs Tagaloa