The following report is from the commencement of the North Island section. The schools below were all visited on 22 October 2010 while a team in the South Island was running in Dunedin:

New Zealand’s largest city welcomed the World Harmony Run with gorgeous skies and peaceful smiles.

At Dominion Road School the children run 7 minutes each morning, so it was no trouble for them to keep up with the harmony torch.

"Run, run, run, run, run, run"! Wesley Primary School got right into the theme song.

Our visit to Onehunga Primary School coincided with a fancy dress day, and so we were greeted by all sorts of creatures including jabberwockies, elves, fairies and teddy bears.

Thankfully they all loved the message of world harmony and eagerly embraced the event by racing around the field with us older and slower members of the team.

Cross-country runners from Hobsonville Primary in West Harbour escorted us to their neighbouring Marina View School where the children were already singing the Harmony Run theme song in assembly.

After finishing our presentation we met some seniors in the playground and gave them the torch to pass around in a circle and make a wish for world peace.

They enjoyed it so much that the torch went around the circle nearly 10 times. Then it was time for an interview with the school’s local broadcaster MVTV - 15 minutes of fame at last!

Big thanks to all the schools who got involved in Auckland and made our visit such a success!

– Tom

Team Members:
Budhsamudra Knox (New Zealand), Tom McGuire (New Zealand), Sean Abbott (Fiji), Daniel Rubin (South Africa), Ailsa Lawless (New Zealand), Ishwaradatta (Australia), Janette (Germany), Mariana (Hungary)

Gallery: See more images!