Local YMCA’s already hard at work with new physical literacy program after $150K Manulife donation

It’s said only nine per cent of youth between 5-17 are getting the 60 minutes of activity per day.

Thanks to a $150,000 donation from Manulife Canada, the YMCA’s in Cambridge and Kitchener-Waterloo are looking to change that with their physical literacy program.

But what is “physical” literacy?

The CEO of the regional YMCA’s Peter Sweeney tells 570 NEWS it’s providing the building blocks, so youth can understand just how to get active.

“It’s one thing to say to folks, and to young people ‘You need to get off the couch, you need to be active,'” he said, “We have a responsibility to provide, particularly to young people, with the knowledge and understanding how even the very very simple building blocks of movement can lead to a healthier outlook on life in general.”

He says with this new funding, they’re going to be able to provide programs to over 20,000 kids across the region over the next three years.

“We’re going to start young,” Sweeney adds, “We’re also going to focus on traditional youth, teenagers who (we know) we need to get moving. We’re going to build programs internally at the ‘Y,’ but also have programs that we can bring out to the community as well.”

Meantime, Manulife Canada President and CEO Mike Doughty says it was an easy decision to contribute the funds.

“At Manulife, through our insurance and all the protection we provide to employers and their employees, we see first-hand the cost of people who don’t lead healthy lives,” he said, “So this is just a natural extension of what we do as a business.”

Doughty says he’s hopeful this money will help empower a new generation to understand what it takes to live a healthy, active life.

In a release, Manulife says “many children fall behind in learning basic movement skills due to inadequate physical education and inequality in access to recreation.”

“Physical literacy training addresses the need for a return to basics, and helps make learning movement fun and meaningful in a way that promotes feelings of success, self-esteem and accomplishment,” they add, “These skills will motivate and empower youth to build positive connections to movement for life.”

Sweeney says they’re already underway in utilizing the funds.

“We’ve actually have already been at it for a couple of months now,” he said, “We did receive some support from the provincial government and we realized that we were only going to be able to take it so far.”

“We had a conversation with Manulife, and I think it just combined really nicely with Manulife’s outlook around healthy living and vitality that this investment will allow us to enhance it by two-fold.”