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School mural that sends students home with a powerful message

Dubai's local art platform, Drawdeck, has created a new mural to support the annual 'Diversity and Autism Awareness' days held by The Dubai British School Jumeirah Park (DBSJP).

The mural, which is located inside the school,  was designed by Drawdeck's in-house team and centres around the importance of inclusion. "In the past, children who were seen as 'different' were generally kept out of society and at times hidden away. That's what the curtain in the design represents," explains Alex Dunn, managing partner of Drawdeck.

The mural, titled 'Unity In Diversity', hopes to encourage students to 'pull' open the curtain to promote inclusion rather than isolation. Diversity is the colour of life and a bold vibrant design is revealed to signify this, with 'unity' hands acknowledging the strength amongst our differences. The blue hand in particular represents autism.

Dunn says: "My nephew is living with autism and goes to the school here, which he loves. After discussing  the idea with DBSJP and hearing their genuine enthusiasm for us to get involved, and eagerness to engage the students it seemed the perfect fit. We have managed to grow an international community on Drawdeck, which is brilliant, but we have recently made it a priority to connect more with the local community, where we can do something fun and hopefully put a smile on a few faces whilst supporting great causes."

The mural was installed between March 21 and 25 to coincide with the school's annual diversity week, a time for DBSJP to embrace and celebrate the uniqueness of individuals. "The response to the wall art from students has been fantastic, from participating in painting the mural and watching the design take shape during the week to taking photographs pulling back the curtain with their parents. It may be the end of #DiversityWeek but this is a wonderful reminder for the DBSJP community to be thinking about diversity every day," says Helen Douglas, head of inclusion at DBSJP.

View video footage of the mural here.