School's contest success

Hiromi Beran from Whangarei Girls' High School met deputy Children's Commissioner Justine Cornwall in Wellington. Photo / Supplied

A picture says a thousand words and that was certainly the case for Northland students who won a national competition with their artwork depicting child poverty.

A Year 10 English class at Whangarei Girls' High School spent a term working on their winning design for the Big Picture competition, run by the Child Poverty Action Group.

Teacher Cara Wood and student Hiromi Beran, 14, flew to Wellington last Wednesday for the award ceremony at New Zealand Parliament's Bowen House. The class were so excited to have won, Mrs Wood said.

WGHS won the secondary school category which was formally announced by deputy Children's Commissioner Justine Cornwall at the ceremony. Overall there were 73 entries.

Hosting the event were National MP Afred Ngaro and Green Party leader Metiria Turei, while others attendees included National MP for Whangarei Shane Reti and Labour's Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis.

The competition asked students around the country to create an image about what children in their community need to be healthy and free from poverty.

"Just being able to see their work on a national stage was such a proud moment for me as a teacher," Mrs Wood said.

The WGHS class discovered there were many aspects to poverty they had not considered before such as mental health, feeling loved and feeling safe. The picture they created was thought up by Hiromi and used Whangarei's Canopy Bridge to show the poverty issues effecting Northland. Hiromi addressed the attendees and described how the concept of poverty was "alien" to many of the class initially.

"But as the research progressed, we discovered the scope and size of the real issue was far bigger than we thought," Hiromi said.

"The project helped us to come together as a class to create an image of poverty and now we must unite as a nation to do something about poverty."

The picture showed rope ladders leading into the harbour labelled education, love, health, support, shelter and nutrition. However, one ladder does not touch the water, where there are people waiting to be rescued. That ladder is labelled safety because the class saw safety, or the feeling of being safe, as the biggest poverty issue facing Northland.