Owairaka celebrates race relations day

Colourful costume to celebrate the day: Owairaka boys dressed up in Pakistani, Tongan, Algerian and Indonesian costume.

Colourful, cultural and culinary describes Owairaka District School’s celebration of its Race Relations Day last month.

The Mt Albert school celebrated the theme ‘People in Harmony’ as part of the school’s focus on Getting Along, which is one goal of its ‘You Can Do It’ foundation encouraged on a daily basis.

Owairaka is a multicultural EnviroSchool with around 18 nationalities and 340 pupils.
The decile two school has gone from strength to strength over the past years and has seen amazing results in recent ERO reports.

Principal Diana Tregoweth, who has been leading the school since 2001, says the day was all about acknowledging each other’s culture.

It began with a special assembly where children shared their different languages and paraded in their traditional and colourful costumes.

A “beautiful” lunch was shared, with the whole school bringing along traditional food to share with others. 

Mrs Tregoweth says, “The children are a wonderful example of people from many cultures getting along so well together.  We are lucky to have so many parents working together to help all of the children at our school.”

The pupils were thrilled about the day, with comments ranging from “I liked seeing everyone dressed up in different costumes.  Some I had never seen before!” and “I liked trying out a Tongan costume for the first time” to “It was great trying food from other cultures.”

The day concluded with a parent meeting where different ethnicities – among them, Muslim, Tongan, Samoan, Asian and African – got together to share and learn ways they can support their children.

Mrs Tregoweth says the school’s main goal is further promoting student achievement and encouraging children to be environmentally friendly.

“This includes more gardening for our kids and teaching them to cook from our herb garden.”

“And of course”, she says, “sustaining what we have got.”