The bottle green of the Murray Bombers will be complemented by the light green of headspace in round 14, with Echuca’s Health and Wellbeing subcommittee teaming up with the youth mental health organisation to help spread awareness and stimulate gameday conversation around the issue.
headspace Echuca staff will man a marquee by the Haw Pavilion, with the purpose of engaging Vic Park patrons on the matter of mental health and providing resources on mental wellbeing.
headspace community engagement officer and Echuca player Jayden Howes explained that days such as these can be pivotal.
“We’ve got a couple of staff coming up throughout the day to man the resource tent, walk through the crowd and just answer questions,” Howe said.
“It’s just creating awareness and bringing the community together in a way that it’s already been brought together.
“It’s not about reinventing the wheel but strengthening it.”
Predominantly engaging with people in the 12-25 age bracket, part of the organisation’s focus will lie with the junior football and netball ranks.
Best-on-ground medals will be presented in the under-16 and under-18 football, as well as the under-15 and under-17 netball.
“That target audience for headspace is 12-25 years of age, so a footy match on the weekend really encapsulates that,” Howe said.
“The main thing for the day is to continue a cohesive conversation and know that it’s not just the adults supporting the kids — it’s everyone supporting everyone.
“With headspace being that early intervention, we want young people to make their own journey and take control of that earlier than what statistics have suggested previously.
“Coming out of COVID we saw some pretty crazy data. It wasn’t a surprise to see that mental health has been worse since COVID, so days like these should happen more often.
“If as a football club and a community we can come together, then we can support those kids as well.
“The Health and Wellbeing sub-committee has been amazing.
“I approached them earlier in the year about if headspace can connect with the footy club, knowing that they were the only club I know of in town that has a health and wellbeing committee.”
The traditional white flags of the goal umpires will be traded for the green variety, while the netball sides will carry out their fixtures against the Bulldogs with a green match-ball.
Echuca will also be a voice for road safety this weekend with the ‘Toward 0’ initiative.
Club captains in the football and netball will don jumpers with the number 0 emblazoned on the back in the hopes of encouraging drivers to observe safety on our roads, and help drive the road toll down to 0.
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