The Junior Neighbourhood Support Programme was named one of the top five international Rotary supported programmes in 2004. It has been adopted in England, Australia, and Fiji, and is being rolled out in other areas around New Zealand.

The following article appeared in Rotary Down Under, October 2004, and is reprinted by permission of the writer, Charmaine White. Moonah is a suburb of Hobart. There are now six schools in the area participating in the Junior Neighbourhood Support programme.

One pair of keen eyes gets a programme in place for Moonah
Still looking for a Centennial project for your club? The Junior Neighbourhood Support Programme is about promoting a sense of pride, safety and community spirit in children and the wider community. It may well suit your club.

by Charmaine White
Rotary Club of Moonah, Tasmania.

Rotary Down Under magazine in October 2002, had an article titled 3,000 Eyes are watching New Zealand. Catchy title, I thought.

Reading on, it gave details of a Junior Neighbourhood Support (JNS) programme telling primary school age children how they could make a difference in their community.

The Rotary Club of West Auckland, N.Z., had become involved in attending school assemblies and bringing other community groups into the schools to give short information sessions for the students.

Awards were given to students, nominated by teachers and principals, who were deserving of encouragement and special recognition.

I was holidaying in New Zealand later that year so took the article with me just in case I had a chance to catch up with the Rotary Club of West Auckland to see how the project was going.

I was lucky enough to get to a club meeting and was blown away by the positive and brave stories that they had to tell me about the results of the JNS programme and how it was benefiting the community.

One such episode was about a seven-year-old boy who was riding his bicycle at the front of his house when he smelt smoke. He saw that it was coming from a nearby house

He knocked on the door and alerted the family of five who were saved. He also rang the fire brigade.

Later the firemen asked the young boy how he knew what to do and he said: "It's COOL TO CARE. A fireman came to our school and told us what we should do. He has come and talked to us a few times so I just remembered."

At one school bullying problems stopped because the children were informed that when a teacher was told about an incident it would be taken seriously. A policeman had delivered that talk.

Another child let the principal know that his uncle had 43 televisions at his house. I will leave that to you to work out what happened.

I decided that the JNS programme was definitely worth bringing back to Tasmania and that the Rotary Club of Moonah would get it up, up and away in Tasmania.

Where did we start? I approached the Glenorchy City Council as I had heard about the Safer Communities committee and asked if anyone knew of such a programme in Tasmania. Council invited me to attend a meeting to talk about Junior Neighbourhood Support. They gave me overwhelming support to get it progressing.

Cath Mcfaull was the co-ordinator of the Safer Communities committee and she, Jackie Dermody and Myra Wolley formed a sub-committee with me to get a pilot programme started.

Four primary schools in Claremont, Springfield Gardens, Goodwood and Rosetta took part initially. Glenorchy Primary School has, recently joined the programme.

It was really a matter of getting our message across to Police, Fire and Education Departments to try out this pilot programme. Safety House Glenorchy Parks and Kidsafe Tasmania are now part of this project.

The Rotary clubs of Glenorchy and Claremont in Tasmania now assist.

Our second year has seen the schools involved all very positive because they have seen fantastic outcomes in their school

As well as a distinctive Junior Neighbourhood Support Badge the programme began with sample bags containing information from the groups helping at the time of the launch.

We have recently been approached by Red Cross which is keen to be involved. They see it as a way of raising awareness of their organisation within the community as well as a means of demonstrating simple first aid techniques to students. Increased membership of Junior Red Cross would be a bonus to the organisation as well as the school community.

Where would we like to see this in five years time? The Junior Neighbourhood Support Programme is about promoting a sense of pride, safety and community spirit in children and the wider community. It deserves to continue to grow and become a national initiative by Rotarians.

It has empowered children to know they don't have to wait to grow up to make a difference. They can do great things for their neighbourhood now.

It also links community groups together and helps show children that it doesn't just all happen automatically.

It is COOL TO CARE.

Further information: Charmaine White 03 6272 1768 or 0418 121 963 or email charmainetwhite@yahoo.com.au