Manaia View School

Manaia View School in Whangarei is an example of a school that has developed a smokefree initiative that is meaningful and relevant for the school and its local community.

The school’s smokefree project is a collaboration with the Health Sponsorship Council (HSC) and other agencies but the school took full ownership for developing the initiative and making it work for the local community.

Smokefree policies were developed at the school using the HSC’s A Guide to a Smokefree/Auahi Kore School, which is based on the Health Promoting Schools framework. Manaia View is a Health Promoting School and the development of its 2010 smokefree initiative closely followed this framework.

As well as developing policies, two staff trained as Quit Coaches in their own time in the holidays. These Quit Coaches offer quit smoking support to staff, as well as parents and wider whānau in the community.

Hikoi key to engaging community

A hikoi around the streets surrounding the school was held to launch the new smokefree initiative and provided a highly meaningful rallying point for the local community. Awa Reeder from the popular Kiwi band Nesian Mystik attended the hikoi, to the delight of students, staff and many parents. Health agencies set up interesting stands along the route to promote other health issues, such as hand washing.

The end of the hikoi was marked with a smokefree/auahi kore balloon release for every student in the school.

Students designed smokefree flags and banners and a winning banner was chosen as the official school smokefree banner. There was a slogan competition; the winning entry was Smoking……ya gotta be joking! A special song was written for the day and HSC provided resource kits, including Māori language versions for all classrooms.

Some students also tidied up their streets in preparation for the hikoi because they wanted to feel proud of their community. An advertisement was also played on the local Channel North TV Station leading up to the launch day.

Outcomes

The outcome of the project is that there are trained quit coaches, materials in the all classrooms, the community is engaged and other health agencies are liaising with the school. The awareness of smokefree as a healthy lifestyle has certainly been raised in this community.