The Harold lady

CLAIRE ALLISON

For 18 years, Jo Worner has been introducing Harold to thousands of Mid and South Canterbury school children. Feature writer Claire Allison finds out why the giraffe has what it takes to last the distance.

Jo Worner's a mother, a grandmother and a trained teacher.

But after 18 years, she's best known to local school children as the Harold lady.

She hears them when she's out and about:

"Mum, look! It's the Harold lady! And Mum's going `Shhh!' And the kid's saying `Hi Jo!"'

"How lucky am I? How could you give up a job like that?"

Jo began her role as an educator for the Mid and South Canterbury Life Education Trust with a one-year contract.

"They said, `This is a new organisation, we want to offer the job for a year'. And I'm thinking, `Wow! A full-time job for a year!"

The Te Moana farmer's wife and mother of three had just started thinking about returning to full-time work as a teacher when she saw an advertisement for the newly formed Mid and South Canterbury trust.

"My husband was on the tractor, so I waltzed out to him and said, `What you do reckon about this?"'

What she didn't realise at the time was that taking up the job meant training for 12 weeks in another town. She was lucky. The trust had just begun offering training in the South Island; the very first educators had to travel to Australia.

Her children were all at school when she started working for the trust, and she slotted comfortably into being Harold's "mum". As time's gone by, and her children have grown up and had children of their own, she feels she's now more the giraffe's grandma.

She's the second longest-serving educator in New Zealand. There were 10 educators at the first conference she attended – now there are 45 and the number is growing all the time.

For 11 years, Jo was the sole educator in this area. She had about 110 schools on her book, and would travel 25,000 kilometres a year for work alone.

"If I was sick, or if there was a funeral to go to, I'd have to cancel a school, and I wouldn't do that. My poor husband had to go to a lot of funerals on his own."

After 11 years Jo began job-sharing the position, and now works with Mid Canterbury-based Jane Hooper.

But it's still busy. The mobile caravan is fully booked, with just one free day for this year. It's a tight timeframe when the trust has to work around snow and strong nor'west winds (the mobile classroom is light and very long).

Last year, 8200 children attended sessions in the mobile caravan. Like thousands of children before them, they came away with lasting memories of the stars in the ceiling and of Harold the giraffe, and with the message that they are unique, that there is no-one else in the world like them.

Today's children are benefiting from new technology and intensive programme development. There have been three refits of the mobile caravan – the latest cost $200,000. At the beginning there were eight programmes; now there are 19 different modules which all fit into the health syllabus.

However, the themes remain the same – substance education, food and nutrition, self-esteem, social relationships and the systems of the body.

Community support hasn't wavered in 18 years. When the mobile classroom needs to be moved from school to school, local trucking firms step in and take care of that.

"We have had amazing backing from amazing people. They're not paid for it, they're not lauded for it."

The only people who are paid are the two educators and the office manager. Everyone else's input is voluntary – including the trust members, who have to raise the $90,000 per year that's needed to keep Harold and the mobile classroom on the road.

It's estimated it costs $9 a head to put a child through the programme. The trust charges schools $3 a head, and finds the money to cover the rest of the cost.

And while the children are still taking on board Harold's messages, Jo says she's still learning, too.

"I learn something every day. Children have had some amazing questions and amazing answers and discussion about what we are doing.

"In this last week, I have had children ask me questions that I have never been asked before, in 18 years. Children still have this most amazing ability to excite you, because they are so interested in everything that's happening."

She still loves watching the children come up the steps, with grins from ear to ear. And they go out with grins on their faces, too.

"Where else could you have a job where people smile at you the whole day?

"It's a pretty cool job."

Life Education classroom always welcome

Harold has a standing invitation at Timaru's Bluestone School.

The school books the Life Education mobile classroom for two weeks at the beginning of every year, and all 460 pupils will spend time inside it.

Principal Ian Poulter says there are no plans to change a winning formula, and one that he's supported since Life Education set up in New Zealand 20 years ago.

Poulter attributes Life Education's success to several factors.

He says the programme has always kept up to date; remained relevant to the curriculum and to the children of today, offers reliable and accurate information; is tailormade for the New Zealand situation, and provides excellent support to the work that schools are doing in class.

"It would not have succeeded if they had not continually updated their topics, to ensure the relevance to the New Zealand situation. A number of other programmes haven't always stayed as relevant."

Poulter says the educators he's dealt with have invariably been people who believe in what they do, and keep the programme alive. Harold remains extremely popular, especially with the younger children.

"It's got a good reputation. The kids know about it, and know it's coming."

The topics covered in the mobile classroom reinforce the messages the school is trying to give its pupils.

"It not only promotes health and wellbeing, it also supports a lot of the things that the new curriculum is strong on – values, citizenship, relating to others, managing yourself. And it's high impact. When you step into that van, it's pretty impressive.

"As schools we have to spend some time focusing on what's worthwhile and important for us to have in there. It's a credit to Life Education that schools continue to invite them back."

When Harold has to hit the road, Hilton Haulage will often lend a hand.

The Timaru transport operator is one of several around Mid and South Canterbury which provide drivers – free of charge – to move the mobile classroom from school to school.

Director Peter Anderson says it's a way for all the trucking firms involved to support the cause. Several managers and staff involved will have had personal experience through their own children going through the Life Education programme.

"Hilton Haulage has been involved pretty much from the beginning. I can't remember a time when we didn't do it.

"It's about giving something back to our community. We believe in Harold's cause and what it does, and it's our way of doing our bit in our area."

There aren't enough hours in the day to offer the Life Education programme to all the schools that want it.

Mid and South Canterbury Life Education Trust chairman Ray King says the programme gets incredible community support.

The 12 voluntary trust members have to find about $90,000 a year to keep the mobile classroom on the road, and extra money for upgrades and refits. That wouldn't be possible without community support, and King says that support hasn't wavered in nearly 20 years.

About $20,000 a year comes from members of the Harold Club, which involves a $450 per year membership fee, and cars for the educators are supplied by vehicle dealerships in Ashburton and Timaru.

"And we go to anyone who makes it known that they will take applications for grants, and we line up every year for the same ones.

"The economic downturn hasn't made a bit of difference to us. Everyone is saying things are tight, but we still have people joining the Harold Club. Whenever you put your hand out and ask for money for children, there's an immediate response."

He attributes the success of the programme to a combination of factors – enthusiastic and committed educators, the freshness that comes from the classroom moving from school to school, and the philosophy of the programme.

"We're not going into the schools saying `don't do drugs, don't do things, don't do that'. We're saying you are very special, there's no-one else like you in this world. That's something quite unique in the programme."

And King says Harold is a big part of Life Education's success.

"Harold is very much a loved icon, not only by children, but right the way through. If you go to a Christmas parade in Timaru or Ashburton the kids and adults alike are calling out "Hi Harold!".

King says he understands that the Mid and South Canterbury trust is seeing more children, taking more sessions, in more schools, than any other trust in New Zealand.

At a national conference recently, Life Education trust members were told the programme's effect is starting to show with children coming into high schools.

King says Founder Trevor Grice had a goal to have every child in New Zealand going through the programme every year.

"It's growing all the time."

- © Fairfax NZ News