Amuri Area School has put its diversity on display.

A life-sized, corflute billboard has been attached to the side of the school to represent the school’s dynamic diversity and the welcome migrant students have received in the Amuri basin, principal Matt Barlow says.

The billboard features students from different ethnicities, including Pasifika, Filipino and South American, who proudly wear the school’s uniform under the banner ‘We are Amuri’.

Barlow says the idea to showcase the school’s diversity on a billboard came from the school’s migrant student club when they were preparing for the school’s Cultural Week. 

“Our migrants make a huge contribution to our community. The billboard is a great way to acknowledge this, and the huge welcome Amuri gives its new students.”

Year 12 students Catherine Paragas and Hanna Samera rang up Hurunui District Council’s Welcoming Communities Facilitator Natalie Paterson for help to turn the idea into reality.

“It worked beautifully with Cultural Week,” Paterson says. “The students wanted to create messaging to reflect to the wider community that we are all here together as Amuri.”

Funding through the Ministry for Youth Development paved the way for a local photographer to be hired and for the concept to be turned into a billboard. The briefing was to create a life-sized billboard and a group shot of the diverse cultures represented at the school.

“Migrant students make up around 28 percent of the school community,” Paterson says.

With extra photos from the photo shoot, the students and Paterson were able to also create six posters to put up around the school for Cultural Week.

“On the Monday, we started putting up the posters across the secondary school early in the morning as staff were arriving and they were saying to us, ‘this is amazing’,” Paterson says. “When we put up the billboard, the response was overwhelming.”

Student Catherine Paragas said it was “really encouraging” to see the time, energy and effort that was put into organising the photos, posters and billboard. “Not only did it bring us together as a school but it also expressed to other students the different cultures and diversity that we have throughout our small communities.”

Paragas said the students were grateful to Hurunui Council’s Welcoming Communities team and Hurunui Youth Programme. “The billboard helps people of different cultures to be seen and celebrates who we are. It’s something that students will really remember and, as the years go by, we will be able to grow stronger as a school and as one big cultural family."

Hurunui Mayor Marie Black says it was a proud moment for Hurunui when the billboard and posters were shared with other districts at the Welcoming Communities national conference in a presentation.

“Hurunui is one of 35 councils that have joined the Welcoming Communities Programme. It’s heartwarming to see our rural communities flagging to the wider community their appreciation of how much our newcomers and migrants contribute to the district.”

Paterson, whose Welcoming Communities role is funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, says the billboard will remain up at the school as a reminder of the huge welcome the Amuri Basin gives to newcomers.

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