There’s something special about the Cultural Festival that brings everyone together from different ethnicities and backgrounds to celebrate on one day. This year’s Festival, to be held on Friday, October 18, will be a Cultural Mufti Day with a Traditional Costume Fashion Show, music and guest performances during the school day. These will be the build up to food stalls and performances in the evening.
The College’s Cultural Prefects Patrick Florendo, Bo Min Cho and Shawna Stowers, along with Ms Kevern, are part of the staff, student and parent committee working to organise the big event, happening on October 18. It will go into the night and allow the wider community to enjoy the festivities.
The committee has been holding regular meetings to encourage students to help in promoting the Festival through posters and video clips. With the junior students currently designing posters.
Patrick spoke about the plans for the Festival to be an all-day event. “The College extended the festival to the evening. That’s why it’s called a Twilight Celebration for our school, because the school wanted to make things different and wanted to kind of create an ongoing trend in the hope they may decide to keep doing it in the evening,” Patrick says.
He continued saying: “It’s important because the committee wants the whole school community to become more active and to participate more with this Cultural Festival instead of just having it during school time. Everyone can come to our Festival in their free time and after work to enjoy the sunset, the decorations and the performances with their friends and their family.”
Bo Min says: “The big factor is that we get to include our families and people outside in our community to a school event. It was only the school last year and in previous years and now we get to include other people to celebrate our cultures.”
The Mufti Day and Wear-Show-Tell Fashion show will encourage students to think about their cultural identity and allow them to come to school in clothing that represents their heritage and form connections with other students and teachers.
Everyone will be putting in a lot of work with help from the Inter-Cultural Committee to make sure the day is a success. Shawna says: “We just need to consistently keep working. We just need to keep getting updates from each group and just constantly tell them to keep practicing…and keep promoting the Festival so that other people can know about it.”
There will be so many opportunities for everyone to get involved in what is set to be an amazing day. Culture is what makes us who we are, and no matter where we come from, we’ve all got a story to tell. We are so lucky to be a part of a school that is a cultural melting pot and the Festival plays an important role in showcasing this.
Shontelle Matano
