A new anti-graffiti initiative in Manukau schools aims to combat tagging by instilling pride and respect in teenagers. The Tag Free Kiwi education programme was developed by the police Youth Education Services team and is sponsored by the Auckland Region Graffiti Free Project.
It encourages students to develop pride and respect in themselves and their communities by exploring creative outlets like urban art and drama.
Tag Free Kiwi was officially launched on Monday at Manurewa High School, one of 12 schools in the region to pilot the initiative last year. The launch also saw the unveiling of four murals created by students who took part in the pilot. Deputy principal Peter Jones says the school had so much success with the initiative it’s now been incorporated into the curriculum. “We decided to introduce aspects of the scheme into the peer support programme for year 9 students which is run by year 13 students,” he says. “It’s also been added into the year 10 health syllabus under the Pride in the Community topic and around 1000 of our students will learn from the Tag Free Kiwi resource this year. Research suggests that as kids get older they sort of grow out of tagging so the earlier you can catch it the better it is for everyone.”
For the pilot the school put a group of students through an intensive week involving theory and practical components. They worked with the Manukau Beautification Trust and got their hands dirty cleaning up tagging in areas close to the school. “It’s all right doing theory based stuff at school but they didn’t connect with the message of the initiative until they went out with the trust. They worked solidly all day and they came back saying they really understood the impact that tagging had on people and communities,” Mr Jones says.
Students were also given the chance to paint four murals which will be placed around the swimming pool at Homai Primary School. Titled “Navigation of Purpose”, the murals represent a journey where education is the vehicle towards an uncertain future. Fame is an aspect of why kids tag and the school wanted to address that in a positive way through the murals, Mr Jones says. “We’ve got some murals here at the school that have been up for years and they don’t get tagged by the students – they’re respected.”
The school hopes to take the initiative further into the community but that would require Manurewa locals “buying into the idea”. Mr Jones says it would be interested in creating murals for Memorial Park on Jellicoe Rd. “To do a project on that scale we’d need the community to buy into that or a professional artist to get involved”.
Article courtesy of the Manukau Courier.
