This week is Social Inclusion Week, and 18 schools are taking part in the inaugural Say Hi campaign to help break down barriers between students, with a focus on students with a disability.

The premise is a simple one – students say ‘‘hi’’ to someone they normally wouldn’t speak with to encourage social inclusion and reduce bullying.

Kanahooka High School is the only Illawarra school participating in the initiative, which is co-ordinated by the Cerebral Palsy Alliance.

Teacher Linda Jennison, who is organising Kanahooka’s involvement in the event tomorrow, said while the school’s students were generally pretty good at including one another, the campaign would help reinforce the need to be kind to people.

‘‘We’ve got quite a large number of students with disabilities, both in mainstream and in the support unit, and we have a lot of kids that are really good mentors, especially in our senior years,’’ she said.

‘‘Our goal is to have those senior kids teach the junior kids how to be a good mentor and a good friend, so we can have inclusion across the whole school.

‘‘We already do that really well, it’s just encouraging the younger kids to become more involved.

‘‘It teaches them to be good adults, to be responsible and caring and all the important things that are hard to teach in the classroom.’’

School captain Rianna Le said she thought the campaign would encourage students to work together and foster a greater sense of belonging in the school community.

‘‘It will reinforce we’re all the same,’’ she said.

Classmate and SRC representative Ashley Salisbury said although the students already got along well, the ‘‘Say Hi’’  initiative would boost school morale and make it a better place to be.