yarragon planting future seeds

Today I joined Richard Di Natale and other Greens candidates in Yarragon to talk about the value of preventative health programs.

Richard, the Greens lead Senate candidate for Victoria, has been touring regional Victoria to highlight the Greens Health Plan.

Both Andrew and Bryce, Grade Sixers at Yarragon Primary School are enjoying a chance to get out of the classroom and into the vegie patch. Here they are pictured with Greens candidates from left to right: Samantha Dunn – Eastern Victoria, Dr Richard Di Natale – Victoria and Dr Malcolm McKelvie – McMillan.

It was terrific to talk about an initiative of the Yarragon Primary School which sees Grade 5 and 6's work outside of the school on various garden projects.

The Community Garden Project, plays a central role in providing the vegie patch and the food for the school program and stems from an initiative by Dr Malcolm McKelvie, Green's Federal Candidate for McMillan.

The program aims to equip students with skills, not only in the garden, but in the kitchen too and matches community mentors with young people to help foster and build connections in the broader community.

Born out of the community and struggling to continue to run unfunded, it is a great example of the sort of preventative program the Greens support as part of a package of initiatives that address long term healthy living.

As part of the Greens Plan the primary care system would become needs-based, so that all Victorians could get better access to health care professionals like GPs, psychologists, even dieticians, before they're sent to hospital and junk food advertising aimed at kids would be banned, and foods would be better labelled to allow shoppers to make informed, health based decisions.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and that's what is happening on the ground in Yarragon.