Christchurch High School Students Receive Awards on Women's Suffrage Day

Students from Aranui High and Rangi Ruru Girls’ School have been awarded first and second place respectively in the 2015 Lois Middlemiss Memorial Award.

The award is an annual competition for poetry and winners were named yesterday at the Kate Sheppard Memorial on Oxford Terrace in Christchurch.

Convener for the Lois Middlemiss Memorial Award, Judith Sutherland of the Christchurch Branch of the National Council of Women, says the aim of the award is to encourage secondary school girls to gain a better understanding of women’s issues.

“We want young women to take a topic and explore it from a personal perspective,” she says.

And that’s exactly what Bethany (Beth) Walters from Aranui High School and Amy Huang (Year 12) from Rangi Ruru Girls’ School did.

Bethany’s poem which received first prize is entitled “I Would Never Do This To You”. It is a thought provoking critique of the current political scene from her perspective.

Amy’s poem is entitled “Speech of the Female Candidate” and is a tongue in cheek address by a woman about what she will do when she becomes Prime Minister.

Ms Sutherland says the quality of entries was very high and encourages girls to start looking ahead to next year.

“Perhaps with pay parity so prevalent in the news at the moment and the Midwives pay parity case due to be heard in the High Court early next year, that may be an inspiration for some,” she says. “But of course anything that inspires our young women is welcome and encouraged.”

With Bethany and Amy, around twenty people including Mayor Lianne Dalziel and Christchurch City councillors Ali Jones and Pauline Cotter, gathered yesterday morning at the Kate Sheppard Memorial on Oxford Terrace (next to the old Municipal Chambers, Our City O-Tautahi) to acknowledge the 122nd anniversary of New Zealand women gaining the vote is known as Women’s Suffrage Day.

ENDS

For more information please call Judith Sutherland 021 0313705 or Ali Jones 027 2473112

I Would Never Do This To You.

Beth Walters, Aranui High School

Crashing waves surround

The rolling mountains of

Such a promised land

I would never do this to you…

Never utter such promises

Painted elaborately with hope

Only to be strung and hung

Left lonely on a shelf

To collect dust

Such royal blue bitterness

Is not what my

Soul can savour

I would never do this to you….

Your eyes twinkle with hope

That soon fade to dim

Contemplating the red anger

That has surfaced on

These sheep skins

He the shepherd

Portrayed so tender and calm

Till he pulls on someone’s tail

A mistake so easily made

Causing controversy to

All he has slain

I would never do this to you…

A woman is what I am

Wandered along this plain

A girl who’s seen a lot

Heart troubled by the quaking land

Oh the problems that have occurred

Since I first heard

D-O-N- K-E-Y

It’s a child’s game

Played back in primary

In the days of innocence

Where the leader of this country

Was just a name

I would never do this to you…

Beauty is what I see here

Raising a flag above my head

So detailed with history

Culture is what I feel deep within

More than a song is what I sung

Since I was little in assembly

My heart radiates out the melody

Proud of Lil ol’ New Zealand

I would never do this to you…

But what do I know?

Merely just a child

Too young to vote

Apparently I don’t give a damn

Too naive to understand

Such a political movement

But oh how I do

So trust me when I say,

‘When I become Prime minister…

I would never do this to you…’