Twelve Native youth from across New Mexico make up our first-ever Get Active youth campaign. The campaign is focused on promoting health and wellness in Native youth ages 12-18. Due to the pandemic, we know many of our Native youth have been separated from their peers and their usual school routines. Through the Get Active campaign, youth have been given the opportnuity to (virtually) come together with Native youth across the state to focus on staying healthy and active. We have been offering virtual programming since last summer, however this campaign gave us an opportunity to reach an older demographic of youth.
The youth have been asked to perform different activities that are aimed at guiding youth towards taking the lead of their own health and wellness. Each week has been centered around on one of our four core areas: physical activity, healthy nutrition, youth development and cultural connections. Some of the activities youth have been asked to preform include designing their own workout routine, making a healthy meal for their family and interviewing their elders.
During virtual check-ins, youth and their accountability partners (parents/guardians) reflect and share their highlights and challenges performing assigned tasks. Besides being provided FitKits that contain small workout gear and sample exercises, the youth have been tackling the tasks on their own! We’ve witnessed just how creative, motivated determined this group of young people are to live healthy lifestyles.
The campaign finishes up this week, however we look forward to keeping up with this amazing group of youth to see how they continue on their healthy journey.
Here are some photos recapping their journey thus far.
