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Alcoa Foundation Program “Youth Votes for Health!”

Program news: April 2011 | May 2011 |September 2011 | October 2011  | December 2011 | January 2012

The new, one-year program funded by Alcoa Foundation ($205,000) “Youth Votes for Health!” was launched in January 2011.  The Program, which has been developed and is currently implemented by the Fund for Sustainable Development in partnership with Alcoa industrial facilities in Belaya Kalitva (Alcoa Metallurg Rus) and Samara (Samara Metallurgical Plant), will advertise healthy lifestyles among local youth in two communities: Kirovsky District of Samara and Belaya Kalitva in Rostov Oblast.

Presentation of health technologies for schools in Belaya Kalitva at a roundtable devoted to the launching of the "Youth Votes for Health" Program

The Program includes 4 components: (1) acquiring and installing street fitness equipment in schoolyards; (2) designing and testing health programs for street fitness equipment and conducting additional healthy lifestyle lessons for schoolchild of different ages and also for community members; (3) organizing the following festivals: “Healthy School, Healthy Family” and “Clean Water”; (4) program monitoring and assessment.

Program activities will involve nearly 3,000 pupils of various ages and community members who live in Samara and Belaya Kalitva and who will undergo training in health programs specially developed for the 30 outdoor new generation exercise machines. These machines will be installed in several schools of each city. Along with health activities, additional lessons devoted to healthily lifestyles will be conducted in the schools (including the subject of healthy eating).

As a result of the Program, the two communities will be provided with outdoor fitness grounds equipped with new generation outdoor fitness machines, as well as specially developed and tested training programs intended for both children and adults of all ages. The teachers and students of 10 partner schools will become active participants in the project.

The festivals “Healthy School, Healthy Family” and “Clean Water” that will take place in each city will help increase awareness among students, teachers, parents, schools, city departments of education and public health, local businesses and government about issues related to healthily lifestyles of young people and  innovative methods of creating a functional urban environment that facilitates youth development.

FSD and Alcoa Russia will provide a broad communications support to the Program both on a federal and local level. One of the planned key outcomes of the Program is to produce a practical and tested example of replicating innovate technologies of “healthy youth lifestyles” in other regions of the country and areas of the presence of other Russian and international businesses.