Page 1186 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 9 April 2008
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to give a hooray for the day to in this motion, and that is Galilee. Being a member of the Rotary Club of Canberra Sunrise, I remember many years ago being able to introduce Canberra Rotary Sunrise to Galilee and, through that, we have a longstanding involvement to give it support in various ways. It is a good organisation and it is certainly working for young people.
Another organisation I would like to mention is the Parkway Church, of which I am a member. There are two wonderful community programs that come out of that through the Parkway Arts. I congratulate the ACT government, and in particular the Chief Minister, on their assistance in the $100,000 grant that the Kulture Break dance group was awarded. What is Kulture Break? It is a creative arts program with a community focus. I do not know if you are into hip-hop, Mr Speaker; I do not know a lot about it but I like to watch it. The program promotes a safe, positive and friendly environment and allows youth in our community to learn an enjoyable and popular skill in dance. That is a really worthwhile thing because it also promotes healthy living and positive values and is 100 per cent drug free. So I commend the government for their involvement in that. That service is provided to around 200 or more young people. I think that every year they have an event and that this year as well as last year there were over 1,000 young people. I know many members here attended that event.
It is something that is really good and positive for our young people, as is another program talked about, CircXtreme. This is also a recreation activity for children and teens, providing a fun way to develop good coordination, performance and social skills. It teaches things like juggling and circus skills through to fire spinning, acrobatics and aerial. This is another great program that is offered to the broader community and it is offered in a safe environment. It exists to challenge children with active minds and bodies to set and achieve their own goals, while guiding and encouraging their development in the areas of coordination, self-esteem—really, really important in this day and age—and spiritual and social awareness, in a physically and emotionally safe and caring Christian environment. So well done to those organisations.
One thing we could do for the youth of our city would be to highlight and make our community more aware of the horror and tragedies of eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa and eating disorders not otherwise specified. I note that there has been quite a bit of media activity about this. I have certainly been involved, having watched my own daughter suffer with anorexia and bulimia for many years. It is something that is very close to my heart and, practically, she is trying to do her best to help people in the community. I have written to many people to try to help raise awareness.
There is no particular support group at the moment, although, having run a forum back in February, where we had between 30 and 40 people at any one time, obviously there is a need for that. We now have an eating disorders mailing list where we keep each other informed of what is going on and where we are taking it to. I have written to Minister Gallagher and I thank her very much for her letter and the fact that she has, with other correspondence she received, forwarded the letter to relevant officers within ACT Health for their information. I am really pleased with the government’s response.
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