MAY 2019 | ISSUE 3
MEDIATION WORKS! PINK SHIRT DAY IN MAY Last month, on the 17th of May, The Peace Foundation showed its support for Pink Shirt Day by walking the streets to raise awareness for the cause. Celebrated annually around the globe, Pink Shirt Day began in Canada in 2007 when two students took a stand against homophobic bullying, after a peer was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. In Aotearoa, Pink Shirt Day aims to create schools, workplaces and communities where all people feel safe, valued and respected.
CLEARVIEW SCHOOL BEING COOL Clearview Primary has a role of approximately 750 students and is located in the township of Rolleston in the Christchurch region. 2018 was our first year of the Cool Schools programme. We had 20 Peer Mediators working in teams to mediate in the playground during lunchtimes. During Youth Peace Week 2018, the peer mediators arranged several activities for the Year 1-8 students to participate in. Two weeks previously, the mediators spoke in assembly and informed students of what would be happening, why there was a Peace Week and the focus for 2018’s Peace Week (Protect Our Planet). They gathered teachers and students to talk about what they thought Peace meant to them. Some of the lunchtime activities during Peace Week included: making paper cranes, writing peace messages, poster and colouring in competitions and yoga classes. A local plant nursery donated a native tree, named our ‘Peace Tree’, which was planted in a garden near the library. Mediators held a planting ceremony and the caretaker made a plaque for it. Another focus for the week was ‘Recycling’. This was identified as a need for our school; something we needed to improve on. Mediators went around every classroom once a day and graded classes on whether they were using their recycling bins, general bins and organics bins properly. At the end of the week we had a school winner. There was also an opportunity to use the recycling bins properly at our school disco, held on the Friday of Peace Week. Because there had been heaps of education around recycling all week, the use of the bins were a huge success.