Dance 4 Asthma winners raise profile of Asthma

Dance 4 Asthma winners raise profile of Asthma

The Asthma Foundation

Media Release

4 July 2014

Congratulations to Cockle Bay Primary (Howick), Green Bay Intermediate (Green Bay, Auckland) and Wanganui Girls College (Wanganui)- winners of the Asthma Foundation's Dance 4 Asthma competition 2014.

Dance 4 Asthma is a national competition which helps to raise the profile of asthma to all children, and the community, in a fun and positive way. Schools had to choreograph a dance to Mama Said by Moorhouse.

"We are so honoured to have our song Mama Said used for Dance 4 Asthma. The reason we sing and perform our music around New Zealand is to make people smile and enjoy each other's company and there is no better way of doing that than with dancing! Dancing for a great cause makes it that much more special to us," said Moorhouse.

"The team at the Asthma Foundation were impressed with the creativity, energy and enthusiasm put into Dance 4 Asthma by all the schools," said Teresa Demetriou, national education services manager at the Asthma Foundation. "We want all our kids to be confident, healthy and participating fully at school - with 1 in 7 kids in New Zealand taking medication for asthma and asthma responsible for 550,000 lost school days every year, it is important to raise the profile of asthma to all our young people."

Couple this with research which shows that entering school with asthma reliably predicts low reading achievement independent of other known covariates of low achievement and you can see how debilitating asthma can be to some children.

Erin Simpson, Asthma Foundation Ambassador and judge of Dance 4 Asthma said "Dance 4 Asthma offers the opportunity to celebrate being active."

Over 38 schools entered the competition with the number of times the videos have been viewed over 12,000 times. All the results can be seen on our website.

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