November 27, 2013

Pupils brightening up hospital walls

Governors Bay School pupils are brightening up walls at Christchurch Hospital with Christmas-themed art.

The children, aged from five to 13, have spent several months completing paintings for a corridor of the Acute Medical Assessment Unit (AMAU) at Christchurch Hospital.

The pupils and their principal, Simon Mutch, will be installing the art work on Monday (December 2), from 9.30am and media are invited to attend.

Mr Mutch says the idea for donating art came about after he noticed blank hospital walls during a visit to a family member.

“I wondered about what we could do to enhance the surroundings in the hospitals,” Mr Mutch says.

“I went back to school and talked about it with a group of year eight students and they decided they would like put their own colourful paintings on the walls.”

The children took their idea to the Ministry of Awesome and gained sponsorship from a stationary shop for art materials.

“Their endeavour has also sparked international interest” Mr Mutch says.

He invited Carol Anne McGuire, who runs a project called Rock Our World http://www.rockourworld.org/ to visit the school.

Rock Our World is an international non-profit organisation, which brings together schools from various parts of the world to collaborate on ideas that will make a difference in their communities.

The schools work together on original music composition, movie making and meet each other in face-to-face video chats. As a result of her visit to Governors Bay School, one of its projects is now Art in Hospitals and schools around the world are placing art in rest homes and hospitals.

ENDS

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