A mural inspired by Matariki, or the Maori New Year, has been gifted to Brookfield Primary School by students from Otumoetai College.

The Year 9 students created the mural from scratch as part of the Stars programme, run by the Graeme Dingle Foundation.

Graeme Dingle Foundation Stars coordinator Karyn Winters runs the peer mentoring programme at the college.

'One of the aspects of peer mentoring is each of the Year 9 classes must do a community service project,” says Karyn.

'We had an article in The Weekend Sun about one of our classes providing morning tea for the Tauranga Police, so this is another one like that. Around 12 students designed and completed this mural to a theme chosen by Brookfield Primary.”

It's one of 14 projects undertaken by the college's Year 9 students, with other classes opting to help the homeless, fundraise for the SPCA or Homes of Hope, or simply picking up rubbish from public reserves.

The mural was unveiled at assembly on Monday, much to the awe of the pupils sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Questions asked of the artists included: 'What was the first thing you painted?” (Background); 'How long did it take?” (A whole term); 'Are those the seven sisters?” (Yes); 'How did you do the eyes?” (With lots of layers of different colours); and, 'What's the name of the lady in the mural?” (Unsure, but she represents Mother Earth).

The Graeme Dingle Foundation began in 1995 as the Project K Trust, and was founded ‘with the goal of maximising young people's potential by improving their education, health and well-being'.

Three thousand schoolchildren in the Western Bay of Plenty take part in the foundation's three youth programmes every week, with well over 100,000 attendance hours logged every year.