“Inner peace for outward action.” – this was the theme for the annual Peace Symposium. Sixteen Sancta Maria College students were fortunate enough this event and which provided the inspiration to create interesting activities throughout the week at school. These activities were to help students reflect on their idea of peace and to spread love.
Throughout the week, ‘compliment jars’ were spread throughout the school consisting of little messages that complimented students and encouraged students to compliment others. These jars were put around to encourage our peers, show love, and help them gain inner peace. The Peace Committee also created a banner that focused on the newly built Saint Luke’s Church. The church was illustrated in the middle of the banner to show the stained-glass window depicting Mother Mary. With the help of the junior students, who shared their beliefs regarding inner peace and how they show it, the banner turned out beautifully!
To end Peace Week, the Peace Committee attended the Peace Symposium held at Western Springs Community Hall. On this day, seven other schools came together to do different activities and present what they have done to spread the theme of inner peace for outward action in their school. Sancta Maria’s Peace Committee shared and presented their activities of peace at school and performed a well-written rap about their perspective of inner peace for outward action. The rap lifted the mood and was worth listening to!
Throughout the day, guest speakers talked about their personal experiences, shared mental challenges and ways of finding peace. The guest speakers who came were Jase Te Patu, Genevieve Mora and Talei Bryant. All of whom gave their own advice on how to maintain our well-being and mental health at a great state and how we find peace within ourselves.
To end the day, the students were split up into random groups with the different schools to discuss what our message is to people in positions of power for how we tackle mental health challenges in Aotearoa. A member of the Peace Committee, Scarlette Oliver, shared her thoughts on this activity. She said “I found it exciting. We were able to not only socialise with other schools, but it gave us a chance to use our voices to say what we truly wanted or our community.”
The day at the symposium was an uplifting and fun experience where the students met like-minded students with strong passions, tackled the issue of mental health challenges, shared their voice and views on peace and learn more about themselves and their inner peace. Jason Borremeo summed up his experience, “It was refreshing in a way. Being put in that environment was really cool and I was able to learn a lot. I enjoyed listening to the guest speakers and I thought that they were really cool.”
A huge thank you to Ms Kevern and Mrs Goddard for giving the students the opportunity to attend the Symposium and for the assistance in making Peace Week so successful!
