On 19th October 2012 West Lakes Shore Elementary School in the Western Adelaide Region of Australia opened a Japanese style “Garden of Peace”.
At the end of last year the school was granted a two million yen budget by the Department of Education, which was devoted to the costs of raw materials for the construction of the garden.
The garden design was supervised by Yoko Neil, who has had garden design experience in Japan. The construction of the garden was carried out by the former deputy headmaster, who retired last year, and two janitors.
The materials for the garden were obtained in Adelaide, and even though there are no “original Japanese” materials in the garden, everybody who participated in the project feels that it is a good representation of a Japanese garden, and will be an especially useful educational resource for an Australian elementary school to have.
Already, an exchange teacher from Himeji and a Japanese politician have visited the garden and were greeted with drums and Japanese songs by the pupils.
