Traditions reflect sustainability

It is very important to engage target groups in systematic activities and launch new initiatives and programmes for children and young people in the county. Therefore, we provide training courses called “Otsi Otti” for kindergarten teachers, organise joint safety days for the older age groups of kindergarten children “Learning Outside Keeps You Healthy Inside”, and a first aid competition “Karvik” for 5th grade students aimed at providing extracurricular supplementary first aid and safety knowledge and practical experience. A county-wide health competition “Out from behind the school desk” for 1st to 3rd grade students was launched at the initiative of the Health Council of Puhja Gymnasium.
Since 2008, we have implemented a national safety programme “Protecting Yourself and Helping Others” for 6th to 8th grade students in our county.
As an example of sharing and implementing best practices, the Tartumaa Trauma Prevention Team has started to provide safety training for secondary school students in Tartumaa, called “Safe Graduation for Everybody”, which is inspired by the analogous national safety programme “Protecting Yourself and Helping Others”.

Peer-to-peer learning has taken off thanks to the involvement of the Youth Council in health promotion activities. For the past eight years, it has become a tradition for the Youth Council to organise annual Health Camps.
Since 2014, a pilot project of setting up a network of health promoting youth centres has been carried out in Tartumaa. Besides involving students, we have organised health workshops for school principals as well. In 2009, the tradition of organising annual summer schools for the network of health promoting educational establishments was launched in the county.
We believe that senior citizens are another very important target group for us in the county. We find them to be a gratifying and active target group who eagerly participates in wellbeing promoting activities. Our annual Health and Safety Days for Seniors have drawn a crowd of hundreds of people every year.