The Play Exchange is a national challenge that was launched in February 2014 to find and support creative ideas to get Canadians living healthier lifestyles. All Canadians were encouraged to submit their ideas for a healthier Canada, and hundreds of applications were received.
Today’s announcement revealed the top six finalists whose ideas will be showcased on a national television show in January 2015 and who will be eligible for up to $1 million to launch their idea.
Check out the top six ideas below:
Organization: Canadian Cancer Society of Quebec
Trottibus is a pedestrian bus service that gives elementary school children the chance to walk to school every weekday morning safely, while having fun at the same time.
Through planned walking routes and stops every weekday morning, two adult volunteers accompany a group of kindergarten to third grade children to school. The CCS provides training and the necessary tools to individuals leading and implementing the project and also helps with volunteer recruitment as required.
Organization: Canada’s National Ballet School
Sharing Dance is an online platform developed by Canada’s National Ballet School that will provide fun, inspirational, and culturally diverse dance content and unparalleled resources for the community, as well as for teachers to aid in teaching dance to students of all ages.
Sharing Dance is also designed to empower mentors who work with youth in high-risk and priority neighborhoods to effectively deliver uplifting and culturally diverse dance programs to under-served communities. Sharing Dance will also reward those youth who, as chosen by their peers and teachers, display exceptional leadership and collaborative spirit through dance.
Organization: Ophea (Ontario Physical and Health Education Association)
This program teaches schools how to use a simple process to create healthier student communities, based on the school’s own unique needs and context. The healthy schools approach empowers schools to follow a simple, step-by-step process to change their school for the better. These steps include:
- Identifying a priority health topic (physical activity, healthy eating, substance use, etc.);
- Forming a student-led action team;
- Developing a plan of action;
- Implementing and evaluating the plan; and
- Celebrating accomplishments and planning for the future.
Organization: Prescription to Get Active
Prescription to Get Active (RxTGA) tackles chronic disease by enabling physicians to write prescriptions for physical activity for patients living sedentary lifestyles.
Family doctors and other health care providers who are part of various Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in the Edmonton Zone and Central Zone in Alberta, identify patients who could benefit from more exercise. Once identified, a special prescription (Prescription to Get Active) form is filled out, providing the patient with details and recommendations on how they can get more active, including the amount of activity required to help improve the patient’s health and prevent disease. The patient can choose the type of activity that suits them. Approximately 27 local recreational and wellness facilities who have joined with the PCNs, recognize and will help support individuals with these unique prescriptions.
Organization: NWT Recreation and Parks Association
The Walk to Tuk encourages people to form teams and together ‘walk the distance’ of the Mackenzie River from Fort Providence, NWT to Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. Teams collectively attempt to walk a total of 1658km, between January and March.
Walk to Tuk is the only territorial-wide physical activity challenge and it engages the highest number of participants for the longest period of time. It is free to participate, open to anyone of any age, can be done within the participants’ community and the tracking is mostly done online with the ability to see the location of each team along the river.
The NWT Recreation and Parks Association (NWTRPA) works with communities across the NWT to promote healthy living through active recreation.
Organization: Zerofootprint
GOODcoins is a web and mobile platform that empowers Canadians with innovative tools to effectively track their daily activities and promote healthy choices with daily reminders, encouraging messaging, and rewards with GOODcoins, a social currency. Activities can include anything from walking or biking 30 minutes every day, reducing home energy and water usage, sharing a healthy tip or signing up for a campaign that challenges the user to make a positive change for them but also the world.
Participants earn GOODcoins for each measureable activity completed, and can redeem them for GOOD products and services.
For more information on the top six Play Exchange Finalists visit the Play Exchange website.
