Healthy Harold, Life Education delivers culturally-safe program for Aboriginal students

Healthy Harold has launched a new ‘culturally appropriate’ program for the Territory’s Indigenous students. Here’s why it’s important.

The Healthy Harold many Territorians know and love is expanding his offering in order to cater to more students from different backgrounds.

Life Education NT general manager Paige McMillan said her team had been working with nine Aboriginal communities – including their Elders and young people – to develop “culturally appropriate” learning resources reflective of Healthy Harold’s messaging.

She said the new resources were designed to give the Indigenous kids learning materials they could better relate to and understand.

“There’s so many benefits to it – there’s the ability to engage, the ability for our educators to come into communities, into schools, work with young people and families to ensure that we have a well-rounded program that speaks to them,” Ms McMillan said.

“The amazing thing about these resources is they don’t just stop with remote communities or First Nations people, they (have) the ability to be able to use them in an educational space for cross cultural learning.”

Ms McMillan said the team engaged with communities such as Lajamanu, Kalkarindji, Daguragu, Yarralin, Pigeon Hole, Bulla, Timber Creek, and Kildurk, as well as schools and Aboriginal medical services.

Life Education educator Cissy Johns works with Gray Primary School students using the new Healthy Harold resources, developed to be culturally safe for Aboriginal students.

“Before (educator Cissy Johns) joined us … she actually worked alongside this project for Sunrise Health and we worked in depth with Katherine West Health Board as well,” she said.

“This project was born in the Big Rivers (region) and we have been able to extend it across the NT, but that was our main focus at the time – to ensure that the major communities that we were working with were the main consultants on the project.”

Ms Johns said her full-circle experience of learning from Healthy Harold to working with the Life Education team had been “very beneficial”.

“It’s identifiable to the Territory, like the diverse range of people that we have here and being able to adapt it into the different sorts of cultures that we have here,” she said.

Education Minister Mark Monaghan said the resources – developed in partnership with the NT Government – showed “no child (would) be left behind under the Territory Labor government”.