Hadlow pupils build 'cardboard city'

MAKESHIFT HOME: Hadlow School pupils Romy Ifill, 8 (left), Lilli Rose Rogers, 10, Annabelle Smith, 10, Sophie Johnson, 9, Laura Buist, religious education teacher, and Charlize Baron, 10, participate in the challenge.

Hadlow School pupils have been helping each other through the trials of an imaginary storm and the realities of a "cardboard city" they built outside their classrooms.

Religious education teacher Laura Buist, who is new to the school, said about 50 Year 5 and 6 pupils had yesterday constructed cardboard shelters in the school grounds as part of a modified Caritas Live It Challenge that aimed to provoke empathy with disaster and poverty victims and instil an ideal of sharing burdens in times of misfortune.

She said Year 1 and 2 pupils would today make donation boxes as part of the challenge and Year 3 and 4 pupils will tomorrow take a turn building and staying for a time in shelters made mostly from cardboard boxes and tape.

The Caritas Challenge is an annual event for schools and youth groups to help build solidarity with those living in poverty or injustice, according to the Caritas website.

Most events will run Friday and Saturday this week and the focus this year was on Typhoon Haiyan and how to Build Back Better following natural disasters that had wreaked widespread destruction in the Philippines in 2013.

"We've been talking about Typhoon Haiyan and Cyclone Pam and what it would be like to live without a home, and being forced to build a shelter with limited resources. Understanding about sharing resources and being neighbours," Miss Buist said.

"There are also activities around helping someone who is stranded ... how to support each other. The central idea is for the children to learn how to collaborate," Miss Buist said.

There were two learning hubs comprising about 100 students involved in building the cardboard shelters this week, she said, and Archdeacon of Wairarapa May Croft was to talk to the pupils about "loving our neighbour and having an eye for the lost and the least and the last of our community".