News

BIG Lottery funded projects in Wolverhampton celebrate success

15/12/2009 00:00:00

Three projects working within Wolverhampton as part of Living Well West Midlands, a BIG Lottery Funded initiative, recently celebrated their success. The local projects held an intergenerational fun day on 25^th November with activities ranging from cooking to planting herbs and a range of physical activity programmes. The day got underway with a speech from Adrian Phillips, Director of Public Health in Wolverhampton, who looked at how Wolverhampton needs to increase its activity levels and how working together as a family can make changing your lifestyle much easier, and was closed by Sarah Norman, Director of Adults and Community at the City Council. The event helped increase awareness of what the projects are doing in the area to help people of all ages.

During the day there were three main activities taking place. Participants from the ‘Families Get Cooking’ initiative took part in a cooking challenge to demonstrate the skills and recipes they have learnt through the project such as healthy pizza and quiche. Everybody got to try some of the children’s food on the day and there wasn’t a crumb left! Age Concern demonstrated their seated exercise classes, led by a volunteer who has been recruited and trained through Well in Wolverhampton. They then moved on to dance mats, purchased for Age Concern by the PCT to increase access to physical activity, which saw the older participants getting even more active, though they did eventually let the young people join in. At the end of the day Farm to Fork helped everyone to get muddy while planting fresh herbs in home-made eco-friendly newspaper pots.

Sue Cook, Education Development Officer (and LCL for Well in Wolverhampton), said “The whole day was a great success. The food created by the children was delicious and it has been great to see people of all generations mixing together and enjoying each others company through the cooking and exercise. The day has been a good example of how important it is to work together as a family and across generations towards a healthier, more active lifestyle.”

The three projects that hosted the day were Wellbeing for Life, managed by Age Concern Wolverhampton, Nutrition Training, Families Get Cooking and Adult Weight Management, led by Wolverhampton PCT and Food Health Team and Farm to Fork, which is run by Groundwork WM. These projects are all part of Living Well West Midlands, a portfolio of 29 projects working to improve the health and well-being of the West Midlands population.