Room 21@EPS

On Thursday 20th of March 2008 Room 21 and Room 19 went to the Reserve to listen to a spokesperson from The Keep Manakau Beautiful Trust.

They talked about how taggers effect our community and that we are the ones who have to pay the money to clean it up. If you get caught tagging you get a black mark after your name on your permanent record so when you are older you will find it difficult to get a good job.

We learned that Graffiti first appeared in the Collesium which is in Rome in Italy. A long time ago they used to write graffiti as they had no way to express their feelings so they used to write messages on the walls. The messages were for other people to read and were also for the politicians because there was no other way for people to communicate with each other.

After we listened to the speaker a small group of students were chosen to go and paint over some graffiti in our neighbourhood.

We went to a small walkway which was filled with graffiti. It was a long walk. We found a buddy and then one of the helpers gave us paint and paintbrushes. We went down the pathway and the Police Officer called Constable White showed us the fence we had to paint.

We started painting. Spikes, our class mascot was also helping us.

It was a hot day but we didn’t mind. We had to fill up our buckets with paint two times. The paint was thick and brown. I got a sore arm painting the fence because my arm was moving up and down lots.

We finished painting it just in time to go back to school for lunch. On our way back, I wasted all the water from my drink bottle to wash my hands. It was a really long way back. It was really fun. I never thought working would be so much fun.

If I could go and help the community again, I would. I learnt a lot about how tagging effects our community and how millions of our dollars are spent on tagging. I think that our money would be better spent on our schools and hospitals and making people’s lives better.

I am so glad I learned more about not tagging on other peoples property and how it affects people’s lives.

By MH