Creative Lands Festival

Festival of Healthy Living

The Creative Lands Festival is a project that aims improve the mental health and wellbeing of primary and secondary school aged students through arts and culture.
The festival has held for the first time in 2022 and due to its overwhelming success, it made a comeback in 2023. 

For a period of 8 weeks, students from Wahgunyah Primary School, Rutherglen high School, Rutherglen Primary School, Rutherglen kindergarten, St Mary's Rutherglen and St. Joseph's Chiltern worked with a local artist developing new skills, confidence and creating an awesome piece of art to present at the combined schools' event on October 26th. 

The students participated in circus, drumming, song writing, aboriginal arts, videography, spoken word and poetry, hip hop, cartooning and visual arts workshops working on the theme "Persistence".  

Participating schools came together for a theatre-style festival event to share and celebrate their creations. The opportunity for students to have a real life experience, performing in front of others, is where a large part of building courage, resilience and joy happens.

The Creative Lands Festival was led by North East Support and Action for Youth (NESAY) in partnership with The Royal Children's Hospital Mental Health and Indigo Shire Council.

What is the Festival for Healthy Living?

FHL has supported Victorian communities for the past 23 years. It has been successfully implemented by 38 communities, involving over 200 schools and assisting over 18,000 young people.

The festival is an innovative mental health promotion initiative developed by Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Mental Health and aims to promote positive mental health and wellbeing among children, young people and their families by building the capacity of schools to implement arts-based mental health promotion activities.The program has been designed through a strengths based, mental health promoting lens, underpinned by an evidence based model combining arts, health and education.

Workshops are conducted by engaged local artists and performers, who are trained to promote mental health awareness to children and youth. Together they co-create a community wellbeing event, building powerful connections, strengthening resilience and celebrating achievement.

Children and their families are enabled to creatively express themselves and:

  • Build self-esteem, confidence, resilience and ability to develop solutions to life’s challenges;
  • Enhance mental health literacy and tackle trauma, stigma and discrimination;
  • Promote inclusion and social cohesion and foster a sense of connection and belonging.
  • Bring communities together - building powerful connections, strengthening resilience and celebrating achievement.
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