19 September, 2018

Cork Institute of Technology’s Department of Sport, Leisure and Childhood Studies (SLCS) hosted the Project Spraoi Research Forum: Key Findings and Future Directions earlier this month.

The Project Spraoi initiative is funded and evaluated by the Department of SLCS and is co-ordinated by a team of researchers in CIT. It aims to positively influence the overall health of primary school children by promoting physical activity and healthy eating.

Since the project began in 2013, Spraoi staff have worked with 10 primary schools in the Cork area. It’s a hands-on project with qualified staff, known as Energizers, visiting participating schools over the school year. Energizers provide resources and support to implement initiatives tailored specifically to each school. They work with the children, teachers, parents and the wider school community to increase levels of physical activity amongst children and promote healthy eating. 

With research recommending that children engage in 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity daily, Energizers play an important role assisting teachers in delivering the sessions, as well as providing professional development and resources to school staff. 

The Forum gave the research team an opportunity to share their findings with representatives from the city and county council, health promotion-HSE, Healthy Ireland, Athletics Ireland, Cork GAA, IRFU, Cork Sports Partnership, UCC, ETB, Community Development as well as the Lord Mayor, Councillor Mick Finn. 

In the five years the project has been running, 3,000 children have benefited from Project Spraoi; 200 teachers have been upskilled in children’s physical activity, nutrition and health and 10 primary schools have been positively influenced.
However, Dr Mai O’Leary of Project Spraoi cautioned that creating a vision is not enough to ensure it will be owned and lived. She stressed the need to develop a plan to coordinate efforts with outside agencies to keep the vision alive. “Hopefully, we will be able to move the process forward so that school going children can reap the rewards of the initiative”, Dr O’Leary said. 

Lord Mayor Finn described Project Spraoi as a blueprint strategy for the future health of our nation. He called on the ministers for Health, Education and Sport to examine the data gathered from Project Spraoi and work with those involved to ensure that physical activity and healthy eating become the norm.

Brian Cuthbert, Principal of Scoil an Spioraid Naoimh, Bishopstown, and former Cork Senior Football manager, acknowledged the inspirational role played by the Project Spraoi Energizer in schools and commended Cork Institute of Technology for its community engagement.

Dr Tara Coppinger, a lead investigator of the initiative, discussed the recent World Health Organization report on low levels of physical activity among adults worldwide, putting 1.4 billion at risk of chronic disease. The report identified the urgent need to support programmes that promote physical activity among children.

The Lord Mayor cited the importance of grants to sports clubs and associations but stressed the importance of inclusivity in school based programmes, especially at a time when technology is winning over sport and recreation.“It’s all well and good having state of the art sports facilities around the city and country, but if we don’t have the young participants to populate them, they will be become mere monuments”, he added.

Project Spraoi is based on the successful New Zealand model called Project Energize which was implemented in 2005. Project Spraoi and Project Energize now work in partnership to improve children's health.

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