Rito

The Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award is a free programme for early learning services. There are three stages in the Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award journey. Rito is the beginning.

The award names represent the harakeke metaphor. They reflect a continuous, sustainable, empowering journey of growth and development from a firm foundation.

Rito, is the heart of the plant, where new beginnings start. Rito recognises commitment and achievement in founding a healthy eating and physical activity environment.

Begin with Rito and build strong foundations to support you to grow through the other stages.

How does it work?

When you register, you’ll be assigned a local Nutrition Advisor who will help you achieve your award.

You’ll also get access to the Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award platform.

Each Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award stage is made up of seven strands. Each strand is about a different topic and has activities to complete. There are resources to help and examples of work from other services to inspire you.

As you complete the strands you'll upload evidence to our platform to show us the environment you're building or growing for your community. Our team will review your work for you.

Timeframes

You’ll have two years to complete the stage.

A year is a good timeframe to aim for to complete the stage. However, we know early learning services can get busy, so we allow two years to complete the award. We’ll be in touch with you along the journey to see how you’re doing and if you need support.

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Achieving Rito

When you complete and pass all strands in Rito your service will have achieved the following.

A Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award

You'll receive an award valid for two years. After that you can try a different stage or keep your foundations in place by doing Rito again. You'll also get a special badge to display on your website.

Healthy eating and physical activity policies

You’ll have healthy eating and physical activity policies in place at your service.

Menus and/or lunchbox guidelines

Your service will have a 2-4-week healthy menu or healthy lunchbox guidelines for whānau.

Curriculum updates

You’ll have regular healthy eating education and daily, planned physical activity in the curriculum.

Community engagement

You’ll have communicated with whānau about healthy eating and physical activity and about your Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award journey.

Resources

You'll have a variety of nutrition and physical activity resources for staff.

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Ready to join the Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award?

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Contact our team