Students adding value to community projects

News Release – For immediate use

Students adding value to community projects

From designing a community fitness circuit to setting up after school programmes in Thailand – it’s all part of the learning experience for AUT Bachelor of Sport and Recreation students studying at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology.

“They’re certainly having an impact in the community,” NMIT Applied Fitness Tutor Claire Dallison says. “From community health right through to high performance sport and from early childhood right through to old age – our students are getting out there and making a positive difference.”

The students are encouraged to get involved in community sport, health and recreation projects as part of the degree’s ‘cooperative education’ module built around three key elements - academic education, industry placement and students.

“It’s way more than work experience,” NMIT Health and Wellbeing Programme Area Leader Mark Bruce-Miller says. “They’re doing project management, designing new programmes, working with staff and taking all the knowledge they’re acquiring from their degree and applying it in a real setting. The students are learning, but they are also leaving something of value behind.”

One of those students is Gareth Jessop who as part of his studies is creating a new 5km fitness circuit around Nelson Airport after the airport approached NMIT for help with the project. After 15 weeks planning and designing the circuit, which includes six outdoor exercise stations, Gareth is excited to start building the track which is opening at the beginning of next year.

Before this project, Mr Jessop worked with a non-profit group in Nelson developing a new mobile recreation service for events and schools. In total he will spend up to 240 hours on the projects, which earn him credits towards his degree.

“I’ve gained so many skills from this experience. The fitness truck involved a lot of community engagement and event management, with the airport project I had to manage a $20,000 budget, get multiple quotes from builders and contractors, survey potential users, research barriers to people using the facility, and put the final design proposal to the airport,” Mr Jessop says.

“I started out with an interest in helping people improve their health through diet and exercise, but as the course has developed I’ve become more interested in the business side of things and have branched out into community development and project management.”

Another student, Richard Townsend, is putting his training to use in a different part of the world. Richard left Nelson yesterday for Pattaya, Thailand, where he plans to set up afterschool sports programmes at children’s schools and orphanages to help them develop fundamental skills and engage them in sports.

He will be there for around two months working in up to seven schools run by the Father-Ray Foundation including a vocational school, children’s home, drop-in-centre and school for the blind and with disabled children.

Richard’s idea for the skills programme came from previous trips to Thailand where he saw how little the children had compared with their Nelson counterparts.

“After a previous trip we raised $1500 to buy sports equipment and Christmas presents for the children. That’s when I first saw how happy they were to have sports equipment,” he says.

“It’s really exciting now to take that project to the next level by putting everything I have learned through my studies into designing a fundamental skills programme for needy children in Thailand.”

The project is a continuation of his work experience this term with Yikes International at Victory School working with Burmese children, Legend Kids afterschool programme and Nelson fundamental sports’ specialist Alison McQuillan.

Other students on this year’s programme are working with healthcare organisations, Nelson and Tasman District Councils, businesses, schools, sport’s trusts, physiotherapists and on marae.

The Bachelor of Sport and Recreation is an Auckland University of Technology programme delivered at NMIT’s Nelson campus. It follows on from NMIT’s one-year Certificate in Fitness and Exercise Science and two year Diploma in Applied Fitness.

ENDS

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