Dorset Community House wants July to be a month of change for people in the municipality.
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The Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania centre is making use of $5000 it won to help encourage people make healthier lifestyle choices.
After winning the cash prize from the state government’s Healthy Tasmania challenge in March, the group will run a number of events and initiatives for people throughout Dorset until August 17.
Initiatives include providing fruit for every student in the municipality, a health expo on July 20 and a community challenge.
Residents can enter the community challenge by making a healthier lifestyle pledge, starting in July, to go into the draw to win a $100 voucher.
The vouchers can be for sporting goods or for food.
“People are already trying to quit smoking or trying to exercise or trying to lose weight or drink more water,” Dorset Community House co-ordinator Vicki Knight.
“It doesn’t matter what the challenge is, we want to encourage people to do it and that’s why we’ve offered an incentive.”
One of the initiatives from the centre has been to encourage a higher consumption of fruit and vegetables among children by offering produce grown on-site.
Ms Knight said the push to improve nutrition needs to be a collective effort to successfully change attitudes toward health and wellbeing.
She hoped other community groups and organisations would join the campaign in any way they can.
“From the research we’ve looked at, the evidence shows that improving nutrition for the whole community in a lot of ways is more effective than only working with individuals,” she said.
“I think everybody knows about common health risks, because I think it’s quite well advertised, but for a lot of people they don’t do anything until something happens and they have to make that change.
“It’s just a matter of getting that information out there and getting those healthy options to people.”
For more information on the campaign, contact the Dorset Community House on 6352 2765.