Renowned Indigenous chef, Mark Olive
Celebrated Aboriginal chef Mark Olive will visit Walgett Community College on 28 May to perform a cooking demonstration for students to teach them about making healthy food choices and help raise awareness about blood-borne viruses, such as Hepatitis C.
Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service (WAMS) and the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW (AH&MRC) have invited Mark to Walgett to work with the students of Walgett Community School, to prepare a three course meal that is healthy for their liver.
Called ‘Love Your Cooking! Love Your Liver!’, the event will be a fun, interactive day for young Aboriginal people in Walgett. The event will focus on ‘healthy eating for your liver’ and was created to promote healthy lifestyle choices and encourage young people to get adolescent health checks, which will be performed by health professionals from Walgett AMS on the day.
“Students will learn to prepare meals that any family can make,” says Kylie Gilmore, Program Practice Manger, WAMS.
“Recipes will focus on a healthy liver and ingredients will be sourced locally. Students will assist in preparing the food under the direction of Mark Olive, and everyone will be able to sample the food prepared on the day,” says Kylie.
Mark will work with WAMS Dietician, Food Technology Staff and Students of Walgett Community College to prepare a number of set recipes that families can make and prepare in Walgett. He will also be using recipes from the Love Your Liver website, and shown hip hop clips from the AH&MRC’s campaign Where’s the Shame, Love Your Liver campaign, which won a National Health Promotion Award for Best Practice and Innovation in 2011.
‘Love Your Cooking! Love Your Liver!’ is part of an ongoing initiative by WAMS to work with local schools to improve the overall health of people living in Walgett by combining education and health promotion programs.
“WAMS welcomes Mark Olive to the community and are grateful for his return visit,” says Christine Corby, CEO of WAMS and Chairperson of the AH&MRC.
“He will assist WAMS in imparting nutrition and health advice for Aboriginal families to eat healthy, as well as exposing students to possible career pathways in nutrition,” says Christine.
Representatives from the AH&MRC also will be on hand to provide information and promotional material about Hepatitis C, and will play hip hop songs created by young Aboriginal people across NSW for the award-winning “Where’s the Shame?” awareness campaign in 2013.
“Creative, interactive events like ‘Love Your Cooking! Love Your Liver!’ are a powerful way to engage young people around health issues,” says Sandra Bailey, CEO of the AH&MRC of NSW.
“The AH&MRC strongly encourages members of the Walgett Community to support their children to participate in the Love Your Cooking! Love Your Liver! event and to promote the preparation of healthy meals in the home,” says Sandra.
Comments are closed.