Each year, students have the opportunity to embrace their cultural identity at OSC. Unity in diversity day (formerly known as UN day) is held on the 24th October and its main goals are to encourage equality, diversity and inclusivity. During the day, we had several events and activities that took place to embrace our identity. In the morning, we started off with a flag parade walk in which every student, teacher and parent stood by the flag of the country in which they felt closer to most/associated with more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the parade, there was an assembly held where we discussed the importance of celebrating our cultural identity and how it impacts the OSC community. I think this assembly helped a lot in reminding all of us that it is significant to celebrate our differences as this allows all of us to understand a variety of perspectives as well as to broaden our own knowledge on our cultures. This year, the DP1 students were split into groups of 2-3 and had the opportunity to host multiple mini presentations throughout all grade levels in which they addressed SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) number 16: “Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions” as their main focus topic. My group presented to the grade nine class and started off by introducing the SDG goal as well as to give real life examples that related to the goal. Following this, we began a small warm-up activity which was the game “Mafia” (also known as Werewolf or Murder Mystery). The game consisted of multiple roles and is played in both day and night cycles. Players who are given the roles of mafia must eliminate other students during the night and during the day, players must discuss who they believe are the culprits. The accused are able to defend themselves and a vote is held. If the mafias are voted out correctly, the civilians win. However if the mafias aren’t voted out, the game continues. Other roles such as healer or detective come into play to make it more challenging for the mafias to win. After this warm up activity, we split the class into two big groups and gave the students multiple scenarios in which their task was to determine which of the characters within that scenario were guilty or not guilty based on the given evidence. This created a large debate between all students and allowed them to express their thoughts and opinions in order to come up with a final decision/conclusion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, one of the last major events of the day was the huge cultural festival lunch. Personally, this was (in my opinion) definitely the best part of Unity in diversity day because I absolutely adore food and it was incredibly exciting to tryout new types of dishes that I’ve never eaten before. I believe that food should be a love language because it brings everyone closer together and allows for all of us to learn more about each other’s cultures.