HealthCorps and Long Beach Polytechnic High School announced today that a new HealthCorps coordinator will serve the school and community for a two-year term, instructing students in nutrition, fitness and mental resilience.

The peer-mentoring program was founded by Dr. Mehmet Oz and his wife Lisa, to fight the childhood obesity and mental resilience crises in underserved public high schools in the United States, according to the announcement.

Ejiro Ntekume will take the reigns as the newest coordinator of the initiative.

Long Beach Polytechnic is one of 44 high school nationwide included in the program, which seeks to “activate teenagers to become agents of change for health in their communities by arming them with simple tools for mental resilience, daily physical activity and nutrition education.”

Ntekume graduated from UCLA in 2015 and hails from Oakland, CA. She recently completed a three-week intensive training with 17 other new coordinators in Houston, TX, which focused on the health-oriented program.

“I have a full year of activities planned including health classes, innovative in-class and extracurricular projects such as an after-school culinary arts program,” she said in a statement.

Oz said that the heart of the program is the coordinators, the recent college graduates who will work full-time in high-need schools.

“Our Coordinators, future health practitioners and policy makers, serve as the point of contact for other wellness focused non-profits and government agency initiatives in their schools,” he said in a statement. 

“I am very excited for this opportunity and to get to work with the students of Long Beach Polytechnic High,” Ntekume said in a statement.

She said she’s looking forward to bringing the HealthCorps message to students and the community.

For more information about HealthCorps, click here.

Photo courtesy of HealthCorps.