Story by Abdulrahman Oulmi | Photos by Abdulrahman Oulmi and Evan Blythe
The shelter in Abbeyfield Park has been boring and colourless for years, but thanks to Lizzy Andrews, a teacher at St Catherine’s primary school, it’s now looking much brighter!
Lizzie brought a class of students from the school to volunteer to paint the shelter and make it look vibrant. They came over on a cold and wet Monday afternoon, but found that they could not paint because it was too wet. They still managed to do some work on the next-door flower beds, because, as one of the students, Amen, told us:
“We wanted the shelter to look beautiful, and be surrounded by flowers.”
Despite the rain, the children still had fun planting in the rain, all smiling and laughing in the shelter. Lizzie told us that the class themselves came up with this ideas for the mural, and that they chose this park because they liked it, the football pitch especially. However, the shelter was filled with graffiti, and that made them upset
The plants for the gardening were donated from the parents and from the council, who thought the project was a wonderful idea and sent some workers to paint over the graffiti.
The children returned the following week to finally be able to complete the mural, but were very disappointed to find that the plants has already been destroyed by some thoughtless people. They did not let that put them off, and they filled the shelter with bright, colourful, rainbows and plants with a bright sea lagoon sky making the shelter feel fresh, bright and welcoming.
We thank St Catherine’s primary school for making the shelter look great.
