Students celebrated Secondary Schools Peace Week with activities such as writing messages of gratitude, creating chalk drawings in the Quad, and by planting a tree on the ASB MAGS Farm.
MAGS joined more than 150 schools around New Zealand in celebrating peace in their school community.
Guidance Counsellor Marianne Wilson said that MAGS’ Peer Mediators organise the week as an extension of their work as Peace Ambassadors in the school, which involves facilitating respectful relationships among their peers.
The week also acts as a commemoration of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This year’s theme was ‘Protect Our Planet’, and the planting of a pohutukawa on the farm was a perfect example of that.
Prefect and Peer Mediator Fatima Imran came up with the idea, and Farm Experience Centre Development manager Peter Brice secured a donated pohutukawa from Rainbow Nurseries.
The tree – the first to be planted on the farm as part of Peace Week – will provide shade and shelter for the stock and will bear a plaque. It is envisaged that more plantings will happen during Peace Week and the driveway up to the farm buildings will eventually be an avenue of trees.
On Monday and Tuesday, students were invited to write messages of gratitude, thanks, appreciation and peace to students and teachers on paper doves, which were handed out on Wednesday.
Also on Tuesday, students turned the Quad into a sea of colourful and peaceful messages with their chalk drawings, while on Thursday there was a spoken word Poetry Slam with messages of peace in the Library.
