This year’s UN Day (or “Unity on Diversity Day”) was as amazing, as usual. UN day is one of the most awaited days of the year for me, and it has a been a day that I have been looking forward to since I first joined OSC in Kindergarten, 12 years ago. Not just because of the food (which was AMAZING) but also because the atmosphere is remarkable. It is truly breathtaking to see everyone representing their own countries, and since OSC has so many different nationalities the basketball court was a sea of colors and symbols on UN morning. We started the day off with gathering in the basketball court beside our flags and in groups. I am half Sri Lankan and half Belgian, but this year I opted for embracing my Belgian side, since I have multiple opportunities during the year (Sinhala Tamil New Year, Independence day, etc) to wear a Saree, but only one day to represent my Belgian colors (also the fact that I would die of heat exhaustion or something under the 100 layers of saree was a motivator). But nevertheless, I am still proud to be able to represent both sides. After everybody gathered on the basketball court, we paraded country by country into the gym, where we could see every single country represented and the people that represented them.
The parade was followed by an assembly in the auditorium, where there were many amazing presentations, such as an adorable sing along to Bruno Mar’s “You can count on me” by the Kindergarteners (it was a little chaotic but very cute), a beautiful traditional Sri Lankan dance by some of the teachers and students at OSC, as well as a read aloud of a book.
After the assembly, we had the student led workshops. My friend and I led the Grade 5 workshop. Around a week ago, we had started planning what we would be doing during the workshop. We decided that a debate would be a great way to get the kids involved, and we picked the topic “Should kids our age have phones?” ( we were really scared the kids would be totally uninterested) All of the kids were super enthusiastic and passionate about taking part in the debate. In the end, both sides had very good arguments and evidence supporting, but the side that supported kids their age won the debate in the end. It was amazing to see how the kids worked with each other, and researched, and surprisingly they did better than we thought they would do ( no offense fifth graders)
After the workshops came my favorite part of the day, the food. This is where all the parents of the kids each have their own stalls, usually one for each country. I made sure to bring a bigger lunchbox than last year so that I could fit in more food (and my strategic thinking did work I had a full lunch box to bring home after) My favorite stalls were the Indonesian, Chinese, Italian and the Sri Lankan stall, and all the food was amazing.
All in all, UN day will always be one of my favorite days in the year, and this year was just truly eye opening experience, and it was amazing to see so many different countries come together in one place.