This Remembrance Day create a messenger bird for someone that you’re missing.

Remembrance Day is coming up on 11 Nov, and this year’s themes including homecoming, reunion and sacrifice are all ideas that we can all probably relate to more so this year than any other since wartime.

The Shrine of Remembrance, one of Australia’s major homes of commemoration, is encouraging kids and families to remember this year by creating a messenger bird for someone they’re missing.

In war and peace, birds have carried messages across vast distances. During wartime, messenger birds kept people connected, shared important information and always knew the way home. At the Shrine’s opening in 1934, hundreds of doves were released from the monument’s balcony in celebration of war’s end.

Here’s the template for the messenger bird which kids can make and write a message on for someone they miss, before hanging it in their garden or front window for Remembrance Day.