(For Immediate Release)

2 April 2012

Community mural project enables teenagers to give back

A fabulous art mural on the stream side of the Child, Youth and Family building, Sel Peacock Drive, Henderson will be unveiled at 10am on Thursday 5 April.

The wall has been transformed by a group of talented teenagers involved in Our Place, a community project which works with at-risk youth - to restore the streambanks along Cranwell Park, Falls Park and other adjacent areas in Henderson.

The mural project is a new component of Our Place, made possible by a particularly engaged group of teenagers. They have been motivated and involved in this project, which they worked on daily for three weeks and of which they are justifiably very proud.

It was project managed by Project Twin Streams Arts Coordinator Mandy Patmore who said, “They’re really cool kids – they turned up every day on time, were keen, asked heaps of questions, got loads of feedback from everyone who walked past and were really proud of what they created.”

“One of them in particular wants to pursue a career in art, and this has helped him figure out where he should be heading. One of the others is really into the planting and has started studying plants at home.”

The design, which was inspired by West Auckland Historical Society’s Trevor Pollard, begins with a pre-European landscape. It moves through the milling years to present-day Henderson - which is depicted in dirty oranges and browns - with cars, fumes, and taggers. Then comes Project Twin Streams restoring the stream. The final image is one of the bush coming back.

Our Place is managed by Community Waitakere, in partnership with Child Youth and Family Waitakere and ZEAL West Auckland Youth Centre, through funding from the Ministry for the Environment’s Community Environment Fund and Project Twin Streams Henderson Creek.

Project Twin Streams is funded by Auckland Council.

ENDS

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