In New Zealand, 1 out of every 7 children takes asthma medication. It’s estimated that 550,000 school days are lost to asthma every year, and students with asthma often have lower reading achievement.
That’s why New Zealand’s Asthma Foundation wanted a fun, engaging way to raise asthma awareness amongst all students. So they invented Dance 4 Asthma-- a fun video competition in which schools all across the country create a dance music video for a certain song. This year’s song was One of a Kind by Cameron Rota, a singer who became famous on the reality TV show X-Factor New Zealand.
57 schools entered this year’s competition. The winner was Woodstock School with a video featuring primary students doing an energetic choreographed dance routine. You can check out the video here. In addition to bragging rights, the school also won an iPad.
But theirs wasn’t the only great video. According to Michael Gudgeon, member of the local dance company Java Dance and a judge in this year’s Dance 4 Asthma competition, “It was great to see such fun, creative, complex and informative videos. I can tell many hours have gone into making these videos and it really shows. It was fabulous to see so many students getting up, dancing and giving it a go. That’s what it’s all about. Being active, having fun, getting to be creative and dancing for asthma.”