Physical Literacy Champion Summit

The Cause

Since 2001, the MRA has worked to enhance the quality of life of the Mackenzie residents. By embracing the principles of Canadian Sport for Life while fostering and supporting development of recreation, volunteers, and leadership we can help create healthy, active communities.

Physical literacy is the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life."
- The International Physical Literacy Association, May 2014

Physical literacy is a collaborative approach to help develop healthy communities. Healthy being a state of complete physical, mental and social well‐being and not merely the absence of disease and a fundamental right for every human being. For more information about physical literacy and its benefits, please visit:

- http://physicalliteracy.ca/community-engagement/physical-literacy-communities/
- http://www.phecanada.ca/programs/physical-literacy
- http://activeforlife.com/resource-intro/

The Physical Literacy Champion (PLC) Summit is a Mackenzie Recreation Association (MRA) initiative with funding partnership from RBC Learn to Play and Sport North. The goal of the summit is to bring together community leaders to lead. Currently there are no physical literacy facilitators within NWT and often any physical literacy approach taken (from any sector: recreation, education, health, community government) is isolated and uncoordinated. At the summit we will train up to two (2) physical literacy champions from each of the 19 communities in the MRA region to have the confidence, competence, knowledge, and understanding of physical literacy. They will be able to go back to their respective communities and further work to align and cooperate with key community sectors to deliver physical literacy programming as well as support each other territorially (regionally) and transfer knowledge to further communities in NWT physical literacy journey.
Throughout the summit, participants will be able to develop an individualized action plan which MRA will use to follow up with at the 3 month, 6 month, and 9 month mark. At the year mark, we will have a conference call and each community will have a chance to give a short presentation on how there action plan went, successes, struggles, take-aways.

Who Will it Benefit?

The MRA communities represent over 13,800 people in NWT. Many of communities are isolated (fly in or ice road only) or remote and therefore experience extraordinary challenges in any sector: recreation, education, health, community government, etc. Over 70% of the total MRA community population are aboriginal and 60% are youth. We envision our communities to be a place where all our children feel healthy, happy and thriving; where all our adults and seniors are active and flourishing; and where all our recreation professionals and volunteers are supported and informed. A physically literate community is all these things.

The summit will have a wide ripple effect as each of the (potential) 40 participants will be able to return to their communities and further transfer knowledge, collaborate with the different community groups, organizations, and sectors, and nurture their community’s physical literacy journey. Additionally, we will be sharing our results and experiences with our partners, funders, and other communities throughout the NWT. As part of the funding partnership our project will be shared with the RBC Learn to Play network and online as well as with Sport North and their board and membership and as such promoting the project and our supporters across NWT and Canada.