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Family Festival Kicks Off Community Drive for Improved Health
A new grassroots effort to improve the health of all New Haven residents kicks off June 20–21 during the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. The launch is organized by Community Interventions for Health’s New Haven Collaborative, a group of volunteers and public health professionals seeking to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent disease.
New Haven is the first U.S. city to participate in the international health initiative. It is spearheaded locally by CARE: Community Alliance for Research and Engagement at Yale along with the New Haven Health Department, Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center and other community organizations.
“We believe that a strong community is a healthy community,” said Jeannette Ickovics, CARE’s director and a Yale School of Public Health professor. “We are committed to collaborative action to develop and implement health–promoting policies and programs that can be sustained long after the stages come down.”
The launch will feature food, demonstrations, art projects and games. All activities will be on the New Haven Green from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Three tents and festival stages will house a variety of informative, family–friendly activities. Visitors will be able to move through the festival and participate in the following activities:
- Art: Individually created “milagros” (Spanish for miracles) will be added to a community–built altar for healing. Artist Michael Anderson, best known for the giant dinosaur outside the Peabody Museum, leads this effort. Hundreds of wafer–thin copper cards will be provided along with palm–size moldings. Akin to a small stone rubbing, the milagros comes into relief after a few minutes of vigorous rubbing. The result is a shiny, embossed copper card that can be personalized before being attached to the hosts: two larger than life cows, resting on the grass. By the end of the event, the cows will be like giant altars, adorned with copper robes to symbolize New Haven’s collective hopes for better community health.
Families also will have the opportunity to inscribe prayer flags to express wishes for individual, family and community health. A community “pledge wall” will display actions that participants would like to pledge–to document, inspire and motivate.
- Food: CitySeed, The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity and the New Haven Land Trust Community Garden Program will inform visitors about how healthy food nurtures people and communities. The Hispanic Health Council also will present an interactive puppet show for children. Finally, Tim “The Food Dude” Cipriano of New Haven Public Schools will demonstrate easy ways to create delicious and nutritious meals.
- Exercise: New Haven Public Schools physical education teachers will host fun and colorful parachute games—inviting residents of all ages to play for fitness. Mubarakah Ibrahim of Balance Fitness for Women will also lead a fitness class each afternoon for all ages.
- Action: Festival participants will also have a chance to commit to healthier lifestyles through New Haven-based Stikk. The group helps people select goals, set the stakes and change their lives. Young filmmakers and videographers from The Color of Words will invite visitors to share their stories about health for a live blog.
For more information or to become a partner or volunteer at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Community Interventions for Health, or other CARE initiatives, go to the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, click on “I want to get involved with CARE”.
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