This week at Tamar Sunrise

This week our guest speaker was Colin Anker, Project Officer for Youth Families and Communities for the Red Cross in Launceston. 
Colin spoke about the three main projects that he is involved with, they are save-a-mate, Talk OUT Loud and the Quick Start Breakfast Club.
save-a-mate (SAM) was started by Australian Red Cross in 1997. The save-a-mate program is now available across Australia from urban centres to rural and remote communities.
save-a-mate's purpose is to promote the health and wellbeing of young people by providing education, service and support on key current and emerging health issues, particularly those related to alcohol and other drug use and mental health.
Colin said the this year as part of this program the Red Cross would be running a "safe partying" scheme at the Falls Festival.
Talk OUT Loud program is a series of Mental health workshops to reduce stigma related to this issue. They also encourage young people to seek help and help each other listen.Good Start Breakfast Clubs provide a healthy breakfast and nutrition information for thousands of school kids, who may otherwise go to school hungry, in areas of greatest need around Australia.
Providing a healthy breakfast helps children to achieve their best in the classroom and in the playground.
Breakfast clubs are about more than providing a healthy start to the day. Schools are supported to set up breakfast clubs, to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children can sit down and enjoy a nutritious morning meal with others. It is also a place where caring adults can be role models for healthy eating and good hygiene.
Breakfast clubs are run right around the country, from cities and towns to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Working with communities, Red Cross supports a range of programs to complement and build on the work being done in Good Start Breakfast Clubs.
Nutrition and budgeting workshops for parents, such as FOODCents, hygiene education, as well as school community gardens are just some of the ways Red Cross is building a healthier future with communities.
One of the long-term goals is to support communities to run their own breakfast clubs, ensuring community ownership and control as well as sustainability of the program. In Launceston the Red Cross runs this programme at the Mowbay Heights and Ravenswood Heights primary Schools.

Next week we have a casual meeting where we will take the opportunity to farewell Clark who is relocating to Hobart for work.