By Terrie Turner
Posted: 3 December 2014
Each year the primary schools of the Northern Porirua area get together for a Speech contest. In their schools they have prepared their speeches and have gone through an elimination process where two finalists are selected There are two age groups: years 5& 6, and years 7&8.
The student who won the year 7 & 8 group gave a very powerful and extremely well delivered speech, where she quoted and adapted the words of a song. Her speech was titled “Self Harm” and the poem or lyrics were:
Mirror mirror on the wall,
Make me pretty, thin and tall.
Mirror mirror on the wall,
If I change my hair will someone start to care?
Mirror mirror on the wall,
If I starve myself, at least I'll be beautiful. Forget my health.
Mirror mirror on the wall,
If I cut my wrist, will I finally feel like I exist?
Mirror mirror on the wall,
Don't you see? What you show is ruining me.
The lass started her speech as above, then talked a bit about befriending people who are lonely and keeping an eye out amongst friends for signs that something is not right. She then repeated the "poem" and finished with the words "Self Harm".
The other speech that impressed went something along the following lines:
Should I throw like a girl? [demonstrated with a limp wristed wee toss]
Should I run like a girl [demonstrated with a tip-toe wee scuttle]
Should I fight like a girl [demonstrated with an open-handed wee tap]
Yes I should!
I should throw like Valerie Adams a double Olympic gold medalist who has also won [added a list of gold medals from world championships]
I should run like Helen Clark who ran for Parliament and ended up New Zealand's first elected female prime minister.
I should fight like Kate Sheppard whose fight resulted in women gaining the vote in 1893.
Those are my role models.
There is nothing wrong with throwing like a girl, running like a girl or fighting like a girl when we have these women as our role models to show us what that means.