A new Defence Veterans project in Springfield

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ribbon nine for nine, money in camp for breakfast and
now this is great news. Money for defense veterans. Nick Gilson,
he's from the University of Coensland. He's got this amazing
project he's just started to help money to defense veterans
with your dad is. He's a defense veteran transition to
civilian life. Good morning, Nick, how are you going?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Good morning, Keper, Good morning Marty, how are you doing
very well? Now?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is based in Springfield, an Ipswich suburb, ma'am, which
is just fantastic. It's a new program. Tell us all
about it, that's right.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, So the few things we know about that trends
is they come out of defense into civilian life. We
know they're less active than the general population. We know
they have things like high levels of heart disease and
poor mental health. We also know they're really isolated, so
they're lacking that connection to community, which is a problem.

(00:56):
And we know around regional areas we need to do
better in providing physical activity support. So we feel active
choices can make a real difference in the area.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, absolutely, and I one hundred percent agree and think
there are so many people in this situation. You know,
coming out of service and then all of a sudden,
what does that look like? What does life look like?
They're obviously going through that process of resetting themselves up,
which can take a very long time, which brings in
all of those things that you've mentioned, and I have
witnessed that with personal friends as well, and it can

(01:27):
be a real struggle. So mate, I think that's wonderful,
especially run by other veterans because they understand. So yeah,
so okay, so when does this start and how can
people get involved?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
So just beginning. It's a partnership between UQ Galliplo Medical
Research Health Well in Queensland Springfield City Group. The program's
twelve weeks. What we do is we first of all
work with Veteran Champions who run the program and they
connect other veterans into physical activity opportunities in the area
and then we're checking with them over twelve weeks to

(01:59):
see how they're going. So we're looking to begin the
program of leads this year early twenty twenty six. So
we're really interested in especially reaching out to connected veterans
in the community who feel it can help out with
with OZ on this project.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Oh that's great, Yeah, I'm happy so how can people
get in contact?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, well if they get onto the UK website and
just plug my name in, Nick Gilson and all my
contact details are on there, and I'd be really interested
to talk to people around the community about how we
can really make a difference with this project.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, I think, yeah, definitely. All any support in that
area I think is vital for our veterans because there's
a lot that goes on that a lot of people
don't understand and know. So yeah, very true, mate, that's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
All right.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Well, if that is you, or if you know somebody
in that situation and you want to help out and
be a part of that, yeah, go and say get
adding Nick.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, Nick Gilson GI L s O N Right, Nick,
that's right, yep, all right, thank you so much. What
a great project.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Thanks guys, thanks for having me on.