181,000 reasons to celebrate!

Author: Michael Fawsitt – Chief Executive Officer, Life Ed Qld

The results are in!

More than 181,000 Queensland children and young people participated in the Life Education program last financial year, ended 30^th June.

We exceeded our goal and it’s been an amazing team effort.

To our 800 plus school and pre-school partners throughout Queensland, a huge thanks! You trust us to work alongside your teachers to deliver vital health, safety and wellbeing education to your students each day, and we’re so grateful for that privilege.

Thanks so much to all the Queensland Government ministers, shadow ministers, and MPs from across the Queensland Parliament who are Ambassadors for our program, because supporting the physical, social and emotional health of our young people is what unites us all.

Thanks so much to Robyn Littlewood and the team at Health and Wellbeing QLD for your continued partnership as we work together to “make healthy happen”.

Thanks so much to our Communities for Children partners: Mission Australia, The Smith Family, Uniting Care and Centacare, who partner with us to reach children in areas of disadvantage.

A massive thanks to almost 5,000 regular donors across Queensland for your loyal support and generosity. Government funding makes up less than one quarter of our funding, so it’s your generosity that’s increasingly important to keeping our program going and for getting our educators and Healthy Harold into classrooms across the state.

Thanks so much to the staff and customers of Office Works across stores from the Sunshine Coast to Cairns, who came together at the end of June to raise more than $50,000 for our work. What a great way to end the financial year!

Of course, none of this could happen without the incredible Life Ed Queensland team, who I’m so proud to work alongside every day. Thank you for your dedication, compassion and achievements. In our recent staff survey, an overwhelming 94% said that Life Ed QLD is a great place to work and 97% said they enjoy their work. That’s so lovely to hear. Personally, I couldn’t agree more! And we’ll continue to strive to do better.

Now, at the start of a new financial year, we go again. Nurturing confident, healthy, respectful and resilient young Queenslanders who are ready for the world, must be a shared priority and focus for all of us. No matter what our role, we can all play a part in building safer, healthier communities, and this next generation of children will soon be the ones to shape our nation’s future.