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Aspetar has launched the Step into Health in Campuses (SIH) initiative, a healthy lifestyle campaign, that aims at students and staff within the campuses of Qatar to promote walking and all its health benefits. |
Launched in November 2013, the SIH team of the Healthy Lifestyle Programme (HLP) connected five universities – Stenden University Qatar, College of the North Atlantic in Qatar (CNAQ), University of Calgary Qatar (UCQ), and the male and female campuses of both the Qatar Community College (QCC) and Qatar University (QU) – by distributing pedometers for students and staff to use.
The campaign, which supports the Qatar National Vision 2030, was a great success with more than a 50% active participation rate and 2,400 members, made up of both students and staff, who achieved a staggering 362mn steps in three months.
The HLP team at Aspetar will visit the existing participating universities and add six more which are Northwestern University in Qatar, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
The SIH team at Aspetar will enter all 13 campuses to implement this exciting health drive from November 16 to December 4, when they will not only encourage students and staff to walk more, but will similarly inspire them to make an active behavioural change.
Abdulla Saeed al-Mohannadi, health promotion researcher, said: “We encourage all students and staff members of the SIH in Campuses initiative to benefit from such a great health programme, to walk more and look closely into their active behaviour, and to realise that together we can create a healthier, active community that is also in line with Qatar’s National Vision 2030.
In addition, the Inter Universities Walking Challenge and the Individual University Walking Challenge, Aspetar will be launched on December 7. It will conclude on March 14, 2015 with an awards ceremony on March 25. Valuable prizes will be awarded to individual walkers who averaged 10,000 steps a day over the challenge period, as well as to the top three universities.
