The idea of the new competition for school students is to express themselves through the creation of art, with the topic of ‘What Inclusion Means to Me’, with the goal to have their works put on public display across exhibitions in the region during the school holidays.

Youth worker and rapper Shane Kennedy, who was involved in the projects on the rap side of the series, applauded students getting involved and said that hip-hop can be a major catalyst for learning good music behaviours and taking the next step in learning the craft.

“Hip hop is a great platform to tell the story of inclusivity – words become sentences, which become paragraphs, which turns into a story,” Kennedy said.

“By acknowledging every student’s story, we role model inclusion.”

The competition also pushes for inclusion across all entrants, especially at the Lake Macquarie Adolescent Support (LMAS).

LMAS head teacher Andrew Katoa said the education system has been particularly challenging for his students and they haven’t felt like they belong.

“Smart Art met our core values and what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to create a safe space, to shift students’ feelings about the education system and make them feel included and maybe even motivated, inspired, and courageous enough to continue into a TAFE course.”

If they win, the class will use the capacity building funding on offer to design and purchase an LMAS uniform, with the prize money for the end of the competition totally $72,000 across eight regional areas, including Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.

“Most of the students don’t like wearing their school uniform because of their negative experiences, but ours would give them a sense of belonging and inclusivity,” says Katoa.

First prize for the inclusion competition is $5000, second prize is $2500 and there are also individual prizes.

The program’s Community Engagement Coordinator, Gabriel Wingate-Pearse, said the challenge was designed to get kids, and their school communities, thinking about how important it is to feel included, and that so far the project had been a success in that regard.

“By thinking about what inclusion means to us, we are better placed to have empathy for others who may experience discrimination and social isolation due to points of difference,” she said.

“That point of difference might be a person’s race or gender, their sexual preference, or their experience of life with a disability. Disability is more common in our community than most people realise, largely because 85 per cent of disabilities are invisible. The ways in which people living with disability experience discrimination or social isolation can be long-lasting and profound.”

Links to the videos and rap songs that have been submitted for the competition are available online at www.smartartchallenge.com.