Peace Week: Kaitāia stream gets clean-up from home-schooled kids

The Far North Home Schooling clean-up crew, Inca Smith, Indy Wilcox, Merryn Bowman, Laani Wilcox, Aleah Barruel, Alana Barruel, Pearl Smith, Zoe Barruel, Kylah Wilcox, and Wolfe Wright, with some of the 30 bags of rubbish they collected from beside the stream on Bank St, Kaitāia for Peace Week. Photo / Mike Dinsdale

While out foraging for edible plants and herbs along a Kaitāia stream, a group of schoolchildren noticed there was also a large amount of rubbish along the stream bank - so decided to do something about it.

So last week, for Peace Week, the group of home-schooled children from the Far North Home Schooling group, along with some parents, went back to the stream to have a good clean-up.

And after collecting about 30 bags of rubbish last Wednesday afternoon, they declared “there’s tonnes more trash out there”.

Parent Alana Barruel said the children had been foraging recently along the stream bank, off Bank St, looking for edible plants and herbs.

Their foraging was a success, but, Barruel said, the children were concerned at just how much rubbish they encountered during their searching.

“They were pretty shocked at how much rubbish there is along just one stream. So it was their idea to do something about it and they wanted to help clean it all up.”

So, to coincide with Peace Week, they decided it would be a good time to get into action and get cleaning up.

“There’s tonnes more trash out there. People should stop throwing their rubbish away as it can end up in the stream, then in the sea,” the young environmentalists declared after finishing their clean-up near the swimming pool.

So what were the main items they found? Cans - lots of cans - pizza boxes and other fast food packaging, clothing, vehicle tyres, a chilly bin and even a pair of scissors.

Barruel said the clean-up was all about awareness for the children and getting them to learn the importance of looking after the environment.

She said Peace Week was an opportunity for the children to learn about the environment and how they could play a part in making the world a more peaceful and harmonious place.

For this year’s Peace Week ,the Peace Foundation’s theme is Community Connect: Project 4 Peace - and the children’s work fitted perfectly with that.

For more information about Peace Week check out www.peacefoundation.org.nz/events/peaceweek/.