On Wednesday 4^th March we attended the Cancer Council’s Sunsmart Workshop accompanied by 8 students from Riverside, Exeter and Launceston Christian School. The day started with a guest speaker who told us her story with melanoma. Kate who is 24 had her skin checked twice by doctors but was told twice that it was completely normal. Her instincts were telling her otherwise. She then went to a skin specialist and got the freckle removed for testing. That came back positive for early stage melanoma above her left knee. Kate’s story really opened our eyes and made us think about the importance of regularly checking your skin and putting in good sun-smart habits. A year later she was then diagnosed with a second case of melanoma near her ankle. She stated that she was the girl to just go out and bake herself in the sun to get a good tan, but told us that it just isn’t worth it. She really wished that there was someone to educate her more on sun safety.

As a collective we worked together to come up with different barriers of not being sun-smart and some solutions to overcome them. We discovered that what you do now will benefit you in the future. We got interviewed by ABC Radio, WIN News and the Examiner which we stated the importance of sun safety education especially in adolescents and that we will be implementing some of the ideas into our school and wider community. This workshop has really made us think of how at risk we really are and have started to make changes in our own personal lives. We hope to continue spreading awareness about being Sun-smart at Kings Meadows.

Lucy Brooks and Kaitlyn Hodgetts