Olivia PowellEventWell Ltd, a charitable social enterprise which educates on and campaigns for better mental health and wellbeing in the events industry, has announced the launch of a new fitness and wellbeing challenge.
The #step300k challenge aims to encourage and motivate event professionals increase their fitness levels during lockdown and beyond by setting a target of 10,000 steps a day. It has also been launched in support of National Walking Month and Mental Health Awareness Week.
National Walking Month was launched by Living Streets, a UK charity that promotes everyday walking and takes place annually in May. Living Street’s mission is to ‘achieve a better walking environment’ and ‘inspire people to walk more’.
Mental Health Awareness Week takes place from 18-22 May. The Mental Health Foundation’s campaign theme for 2020 is kindness, to ‘celebrate the thousands of acts of kindness that are so important to our mental health’. To support this, there will be a week of discussion on the kind of society that should be shaped in a post-Covid-19 world, nationwide.
CEO of EventWell, Helen Moon, said: “The community and society that we serve is the Event Industry as its charitable social enterprise, movement and, voice for mental health and wellbeing. Our aim for May will be about bringing the event industry together, with our hospitality and travel colleagues, to start to look at the type of industry we want to shape from a wellbeing perspective post C19.
“One in three event professionals struggle with their mental health every year, this is also true for the hospitality and travel industry. If C19 is teaching us anything it is how important our health and wellbeing is and, how we should be taking very good care of it not just for now but for life.
“We wanted to launch a challenge that was fun, easy and that everyone could be a part of. Walking is free, flexible and fun, and proven to have a huge impact on your wellbeing; strengthening your heart, lowering disease risk, preventing dementia, toning up legs, bums and tums, boosting vitamin D and, increasing happiness.
“Even in lockdown we are able to get an hour of exercise daily and, walking for an hour will easily help you achieve 10,000 steps in a day. Just remembering to get up and move around every hour, standing and walking when on the phone, and even running and cycling, we want to encourage as many people as possible to be thinking about being active and moving to benefit their health, focus, motivation and happiness”.
The challenge will begin on 1 May, and is open to anyone working in events, hospitality or travel. It can be completed on an individual or team basis. For more information or an activity pack, contact team@eventwell.org or visit https://eventwell.org/eventwell-challenge-step-300k/.