Our Kete Wana collaboration project this year is part of the Tuku Aroha project, which is about making quilts to gift to others.

Last year the first quilts were made by students and teachers for the families who were affected by the events on March 15. Tuku Aroha means to give with love.

At Hagley we have students and families from many different places and some of these people come to New Zealand as refugees from their homeland. As part of the Tuku Aroha project we have made quilts to welcome some of these families to Hagley College.

Ben Gresham, Hagley Diversity Services Manager, and ELL teachers Lesley and Tara organised four Eritrean families to be the recipients of the quilts this year. The families had recently moved to Christchurch. Namrud Gebreab attended the presentation as translator for us. We were very thankful that he could explain to the families our messages of welcome to Hagley.

When we were making our quilts we learnt skills in combining colours together by using dye, textile paint to screen print, and patchwork. The patchwork activity made us think about sustainable use of scrap fabrics from other sewing projects to carry on a very old fashioned textiles art that many cultures have used over many years.

In our groups we discussed how to lay out the quilts and use our sewing skills to put the pieces together. We know that some people are really good at sewing, while others helped by pinning the fabrics, ironing and doing a quality control check. We are proud of the way we have used our skills to make these quilts to give to the new Hagley families.

The families that received the quilts are;

• Atsede Kidane and Fishale Weldesilase
• Enbeba Tesfu and Kahsay Zemicheal
• Hellen Gezu
• Simret Gebretensie who has twin girls at the preschool.

We concluded the presentation with a karakia by Aisha and Tarawhai and shared kai.