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Taking pride and celebrating diversity at BestStart Papatoetoe
At BestStart Papatoetoe, we embrace diverse cultures and create a fair learning environment with tamariki as we celebrate and affirm who we all are. WIth Easter celebrations, our tamariki showed off thier cultural outfits and enjoyed hunting Easter eggs, observing and admiring the shapes and colors and showed their creation through lots of art activities. We also celebrated the colorful Indian festival of Holi which is popular and significant Hindu festival of Colours, Love, and Spring thus binding us together among our whanau, kaiako's and most of all, our beautiful tamariki. Then, we celebrated a Muslim cultural celebration of Eid where we ate cultural dishes, indulged in cultural art activities. We celebrated Anzac Day and showed its importance by providing our tamariki with many different activities: making poppy flowers, talking about ANZAC stories and wreath making. Learning about different cultures helps children develop an appreciation for diversity and understand that people have different customs, traditions, and beliefs thus fosters tolerance, empathy, and respect for others. As our tamariki experience thier own and other cultures and heritage, it promotes a sense of identity and belonging linking to our centre philosophy, where we acknowledge that children learn and develop best when their culture, knowledge and community are affirmed. It also shows our commitment to our curriculum Te Whariki, the Mana Whenua (Belonging) Strand which recognizes diversity and places importance.