Connecting the Ruapehu community

“There are days that I wake up and feel like I have the best job”, says Sport Whanganui Community Connector and Ohakune local, Sarah Demchy.

Sarah and her family have called Ohakune home since 2008, since then she has held both volunteering and work roles before joining Sport Whanganui in June 2024 as part of the Healthy Active Learning team. Alongside Miriama Lucas, also based in Ohakune, they make up the Ruapehu arm of the Sport Whanganui team working in partnership with local schools and the community.

Sport Whanganui is a Regional Sports Trust that supports communities across the wider Whanganui/Rangitīkei/Ruapehu region, from Bulls up to Taumarunui.

“It’s a privilege to be able to be based here supporting the local schools and community, with the backing of an awesome team in Whanganui and Rangitīkei,” says Sarah.

As members of the Healthy Active Learning Team, Miriama works alongside primary schools and kura to help deliver the health and physical education curriculum, while Sarah’s focus is to link schools up with local clubs, businesses and community organisations to help activate tamariki and rangatahi.

A recent highlight was Ruapehu hosting their first ‘Physical Activity Leaders Day’, with 42 students from local primary schools and their teachers coming together at the start of the year to learn about the Physical Activity Leaders (PALS) philosophy and how it can be applied in their school environment.

“For some schools that looks like having their PALS look after lunchtime games, or managing the PE shed, or it might be helping out at school sports days.”

Sarah also organised to bring a specialist throwing coach up from Whanganui to help prepare Ruapehu College students for their athletics day.

“It’s about giving those kids and their teachers the confidence to build physical activity into their day, making it as fun and accessible as possible.”

As well as running regular events for school-age students – including the popular Waimarino Tough Kid® coming up on 11 April at the Raetihi showgrounds – Sport Whanganui also works strategically alongside Ruapehu District Council to help ensure the community has access to quality spaces and places to be active. The health team also regularly visits clinics across the district to see clients as part of the Green Prescription and Fit for Surgery programmes, supporting people to improve their health and wellbeing.

Having two members of the team based in the Ruapehu has undoubtedly created more opportunities for the wider Sport Whanganui team to connect with the community. Working together with Sarah on a proposed new Ruapehu Sport Leaders Network for school sport coordinators and sports and active recreation clubs is Rangatahi Lead, Paula Darlington and Sport Partnership Advisor, Dinelle Saunders.

“The idea is to build a network for information sharing and problem solving between Ruapehu clubs,” says Paula.

“The aim is to get feedback on what they want to see in the area and talk about how Sport Whanganui can support that.”

Anyone interested to find out more is welcome to get in touch with Paula at paula@sportwhanganui.co.nz or Sarah at sarahd@sportwhanganui.co.nz.