Throughout Ukraine’s history, the sunflower has been used as a symbol of peace. More recently people all over the world have been displaying sunflowers as a way of showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

The Lodge residents have worked on creating their own sunflowers in the new Art Room, using various mediums such as paint, pencil, chalk & crayon. They have beautiful arrangements of sunflowers placed around the site alongside the colours of Ukraine and the residents also wrote words of support and kindness to the Ukrainian people.

In the afternoon, staff members held a discussion with residents to talk about Harmony Day; what it is and why we acknowledge it. Conversation cards were also used as an ice-breaker to get the residents talking with each other.

“We deliberately sat the residents not in their normal “cliques” and everyone was so proud that they engaged so well with other residents. Some met for the first time!” Said Samantha McNair.

Residents discovered that they were from all different places in Australia and around the World, highlighting the different values, beliefs, but everybody was respected regardless of their cultural background.

Little coloured flags were pinned on a big world map where everyone was born and seeing the geographical distance blew their minds!