Newly-elected Youth Council make animated film about heart disease

Cllr Clive Furness and young mayor Rebekah Dike second from the right with the Youth Council. Picture: Steve Poston

Melissa York, Reporter Monday, December 3, 2012
10:57 AM

Young people from Newham’s newly-elected Youth Council put their hearts into a film project designed to combat high levels of heart disease in the borough.

Newham currently has the highest mortality rate of heart disease in London with emergency admission rates for hospitals for coronary heart disease and stoke significantly higher in Newham than anywhere else in the UK.

So members of Newham’s Youth Council decided to make a film to get young people leading healthier lifestyles before the disease can grab hold.

The three-minute animated film is called Right Here, Right Now and it was screened at Stratford Library in The Grove on Thursday.

Recently elected Young Mayor of Newham Rebekah Dike, 15, said: “Ill health does not happen overnight. It starts when we are young so we need to start preventing it early.

“We must make keeping fit a part of our everyday life and not just something we do at school or college.”

The Youth Council produced the film with Hearty Lives Newham, a £1.5m partnership programme between NHS North East London and the City, Newham Council and the British Heart Foundation.

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