Winepress - October 2024

Part of the community

School children get creative in a project to welcome RSE workers

BEV DOOLE

Teacher Lucy Smith and Kauri Room tamariki, Redwoodtown School

PHOTO: JIM TANNOCK

BULA, WELKAM, Talofa lava, Sawasdee, Mālā e lelei, Ko na mauri! Children at four primary schools have been getting creative with a project to welcome summer RSE workers to Marlborough. Their posters representing different countries are going up in worker accommodation and shop windows around Blenheim as part of the Welcoming Communities programme.

For Kauri Room (Year 6-7) at Redwoodtown School, the three-week project brings together social sciences, literacy and art. As well as learning greetings in different languages for their posters, they’ve been finding out what life is like for RSE workers at home, and the differences they face in Marlborough. Eleven-year-old Olly-Blenheim discovered that Tonga is one of the first places in the world to experience new year’s day, it has a King, and there are lots of humpback whales. “It’s much colder here than in Tonga, and you can’t grow pineapples or mangoes. I think they will get homesick. It’s not like your whole family comes, it’s only one person so they can earn money and send it back home.”

The project tied in with the class novel Dawn Raid, by Pauline Vaeluaga Smith, about a time when New Zealand was less welcoming. “In the 1970s there were dawn raids by the police to send the Pacific Islanders home,” explains Aylee, 10. “That wasn’t very welcoming when they were just trying to help work in our factories. People now know that wasn’t right, it wasn’t justice. They shouldn’t have been treated like that.” Aylee says things are different now. “We’re trying to welcome the workers to Blenheim and make them feel comfortable here, like showing them how to use a microwave.”

For their teacher Lucy Smith, the Welcoming Communities project highlights how much Marlborough has changed. “My grandparents are from Samoa and Fiji. They moved here in the 1960s, and my father was born in Blenheim. Back then it was very much about fitting in, doing things the kiwi way. The language wasn’t spoken at home, and when I went to Marlborough Girls College there were hardly any Pacific Islanders. Now there’s a really strong Pasifika group, I’d have loved to have something like that when I was a kid.”

Lucy teaches a class made up of many cultures – Samoan, Tongan, Scottish, Māori, Indian, Thai, Myanmarese, Pakeha. “It’s all about embracing different cultures. It makes for a much more interesting place than when I was growing up in Blenheim.”

Welcoming posters also came from Springlands, Wairau Valley and Fairhall schools. RSE leaders from labour contracting companies gathered at Vinepower to pick their favourites and all were impressed by the work to create them. “I liked this poster because it shows what a diverse place Papua New Guinea is, from the Highlands to the Islands, our flag and our food,” says Fabian Ekil Yaiya.

Dhirendra Swami, from Fiji, has been working in Marlborough vineyards since 2006 and proudly received his New Zealand citizenship in August. An RSE superviser with Vinepower, he brought his grandaughter Reyna to see the posters and she chose her favourite because “it shows lots of countries, and it also has a mango and watermelon.”

Favourite posters: RSE workers from Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and Samoa gathered at Vinepower in Riverlands to help choose the Welcoming Communities posters. (Clockwise from left) Sitiveni Dakunimata, Micah Bulemis, Dhirendra Swami, Rayna Swami, Titus Aloko, Johnson Kagu, Fabian Ekil Yaiya, Maungaunga Tinaua, Iaseto Falanai, Tutu Jack, Liona Junior Taala and Kay Lawrence.