Within a week of British youths being described as the worst in Europe, Humberside youngsters have defied the critics! At the eagerly awaited, glittering Lifestyle Awards ceremony held at the Hull City Hall last night (7th November 06), a team of six 11 and 12 year old children called 'The Healing Pool Savers' were crowned Champions of Lifestyle 2006. The panel of judges included sponsors BP and leading safety solutions provider, Arco. The winning team scooped a holiday of a lifetime to Disneyland Florida for their stunning project: the restoration of the outdoor swimming pool at Healing Primary School, Grimsby.
The Lifestyle Project, organised by Humberside Police throughout the school summer holidays each year, is open to young people aged between 10 and 18, who live in the vicinity of or attend school in the Humberside police area. The project is designed to forge relationships between children, their communities and the local police. This summer, around 1,400 teams entered the competition, choosing a variety of projects to undertake throughout the summer. At the end of the school holidays, just six finalist teams of up to five 10-18 year olds were short-listed. The five runner-up teams each won a fabulous Adventure holiday to France including a day at Disneyland Paris. Brough Primary School also scooped the Lifestyle Top School of the year Award, winning £2,000 worth of computer equipment, courtesy of Azzurri Communications.
Chief Constable of Humberside Police, Tim Hollis said, "Young people get a pretty bad time from the media these days. In my experience, the majority are perfectly normal kids growing up in a challenging world. Our Lifestyle project is testament to the fact that, given the right encouragement and support, many of them actively seek to make a contribution to their local community. Tonight we have illustrated the superb work undertaken by teams to do just that across Humberside and I'm proud of the role played by Humberside Police in making Lifestyle happen. This year alone over 5,000 young people took part in Lifestyle, working thousands of hours to help others. I want to offer my personal congratulations to everyone involved."
One of the judges, Paul Lyons from Arco, said, "'I was exceptionally impressed with all of the Lifestyle finalists and would like to congratulate the winners, Healing Pool Savers. The way in which they managed their project was superb. Each individual took personal responsibility for specific areas of work. This, combined with the sheer scale of the task, the fact that everyone said it would be impossible and the resultant benefit to the community made the Healing Pool Savers very worthy winners indeed. Well done to the whole team. All of that hard work was worth it!"
Lisa Whitton, Lifestyle Project Coordinator at Humberside Police Force, added, "This highly successful initiative has only been able to go from strength to strength due to the support of local businesses. Arco is a much-valued long term supporter of the Humberside Police Lifestyle Project, sponsoring the Lifestyle Awards Ceremony, which recognises and rewards the thousands of young people throughout the Humber region who take part in the project annually. Many hours are spent on work to improve local communities and important life skills are learnt by all those participating during the long summer holidays."
Arco also strongly supports the Humberside Police Lifestyle Rock Challenge which encourages secondary school students to achieve a natural drug-free high through performance. Due to their success in the Lifestyle Rock Challenge. students of Matthew Humberstone School in Cleethorpes, provided the entertainment at the Lifestyle Awards.
Background - Healing Pool Savers
The pool had been closed for over two years and was in a very sorry state with stagnant water and vandalised changing rooms. The team decided they wanted to re-open the pool and enthusiastically set about gaining permission for the project to go ahead and enlisted the help of everyone including local businesses, family and friends, to completely renovate and then re-open the swimming pool. Jobs undertaken included installing hot running water in the changing rooms, and decorating them inside and out. The team also repaired and repainted the exterior fencing around the pool and created a lovely garden area. The local Fire Brigade even helped by pumping out the smelly water from the pool!
No job was too daunting for the team as an official Health and Safety report highlighted many areas of concern regarding the pool, the team saw this as an opportunity to use their powers of persuasion to encourage electricians, plumbers and even the original pool makers to donate their services to help them undertake the many tasks required.
Thanks to the efforts of The Healing Pool Savers, the pool is now open once more enabling hundreds of local students to learn to swim for many years to come.
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