Opening Skylight Art Exhibition

BEEHIVE FOYER, WELLINGTON

Good afternoon and welcome everyone; and a special welcome to all the young artists here today.

I am delighted to be the host for this most colourful and vibrant art exhibition aptly called Life is Beautiful.

I would like to thank all the young people here today, and all those who took the time to enter this competition to raise
awareness for the skylight organisation.

As I look around at the art represented here I see how much it reflects our young people's ideas about who and what we are.
In today's shrinking world, I believe we need to preserve and foster our own New Zealand cultural identity and young
people have a defining role in this.

Nurturing our young up and coming artists is crucial if we are to maintain our national identity in an environment where much
of our life is dominated by influences from outside New Zealand.

The need to foster and protect our own cultural heritage and potential is becoming increasingly important.

We need to maintain a form of cultural expression where we speak with our own voices, where we see ourselves on
television, where we tell our own stories, involve ourselves in our own history and record our own lives in art such as this.

Again a special thank you to all the young people who have come from all over the Wellington region to take part in this
most worthwhile exhibition in support of skylight.

This organisation has been established by the Children's Grief Charitable Trust to support children and young people who
are unfortunately having to cope with grief and loss.

skylight aims to educate and train those who work with young people, including teachers, counsellors and care-givers, to
help them when they experience grief and loss. skylight will also develop a national resource and information service, and
counselling and support services for these young people.

Raising funds and awareness about skylight will be necessary to achieve these aims. This art exhibition is a first step in this
worthwhile initiative.

From here the exhibition moves on to Capital E and then on Friday May 28 the whole of Wellington will come alive in
support of skylight with a radiothon promoted by the Radio Network.

And this is only the beginning of what can only be described as a good thing for our young people. After its Wellington
launch skylight will be promoted nationwide so all New Zealand young people will be able to benefit from the work of this
charitable trust.

I wish skylight and the Children's Grief Centre Charitable Trust well in their endeavours to assist and support our young
people in this positive way.

And before this exhibition moves to Capital E I urge you all to vote for your favourite piece of art. A panel of judges is also
selecting winning entries in each of the three categories, so casting your vote means an extra category of prizes will be
awarded.

While everyone likes to win a prize, I think the all our competitors here today are prize winners. We may even have a
budding Colin McCahon or Olivia Spensor-Bower with us today.

I urge all you young people to keep your creative side alive as this will not only be of benefit to your selves but also to our
own special Kiwi culture.

And in closing I ask everyone here to go out and spread the word about skylight and the Children's Grief Centre Charitable
Trust.