The first Village Festival is scheduled to take place at Victoria Park in Tupapa this afternoon with the various sporting codes providing activities for the children aged six to 12-years-old to participate in.
The initiative is the brainchild of Michelle Paiti, Just Play project manager for the Cook Islands Football Association, and Karen Tairea from the Cook Islands Ministry of Health, and follows the recent joint promotion of the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Awareness Programme aimed at encouraging Cook Islanders to eat healthy and keep active.
Following the event Tairea will hold an NCD Awareness workshop to help increase public awareness and knowledge on the subject of NCDs in their community.
While Just Play focuses on development and education through football, Paiti says it is great to have the support of other codes to bring variety and help keep the youngsters interested.
“It’s great to see that sport, and in particular football through Just Play, can play a role in promoting physical activity to assist in the awareness of non-communicable diseases here on our island,” Paiti says.
“With the assistance of Cook Islands Rugby, Cook Islands Cricket and ANZ Tamariki Sports our local youth will enjoy a variety of sporting activities and hopefully the message of active and healthy living will stay in the minds of our little ones through sports.”
Following the Tupapa event, the festival will run once a month around Rarotonga with the continued support of the Ministry of Health and other sporting codes.
Developed by the OFC social responsibility and technical departments, Just Play is designed for children aged six to 12 and promotes physical activity while encouraging community involvement, healthy living, gender equality and disability development.
OFC has worked closely with UEFA, the Australian Government – through its agencies the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) – and Football Federation Australia to implement the programme across the Pacific over a three-year period between 2009 and 2012. It was launched in Tonga and is now also running in American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Vanuatu.
The confederation has also been working in New Zealand with Special Olympics on a Just Play programme for people with mental disabilities and has launched the same initiative in Samoa and Fiji.
Just Play has reached over 100,000 children – 43 per cent of whom are female – across the Pacific and trained over 2,000 teachers and volunteers.
For more on Cook Islands football go to www.cookislandsfootball.com

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