For my CAS project, I collaborated with Sanya another DP2 student (LO4) in order to bring about the spirit of Unity while we remain online. UN Day pre-pandemic was celebrated by flag parades, lunch being filled with delightful food from different countries and cultures and fun activities that encouraged people to come together but also learn about important things going on worldwide (LO6). This day was being celebrated after 3 years and we wanted to make sure that even though we were doing it online we captured the true essence of this day and event (LO2). Our first goal was to pick a theme for this year’s UN day. The UN has 17 sustainable development goals and we picked goal 16 which is Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (LO6). This goal was picked because with the pandemic and also the political situations in different countries we thought it’s important to put emphasis on peace, justice and institutions (LO3 and LO7). Our second goal was to decide different activities that can be done when we are online so that we can get people united. Usually, on UN Day we have a variety of dishes from different countries and nationalities from parents in the community that displays the amazing cultures present on our campus. We wanted to replicate that feeling of joy when people get to experience flavours from all around the world. To do that we created a padlet where everyone could share recipes and pictures of unique flavours from their culture (LO3). These recipes were not limited to only a recipe from their nation but also any culture they are influenced by. A picture of a part of the Padlet after UN day is attached below.

At the same time, we also reached out to the DP1 theatre group to create a performance targeting our theme of Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (LO3 and LO4). Along with that, there was also a video created by the tech team to show how this also relates to the agenda of many of the committee’s we have for the Colombo Model United Nations this year. In order to recreate the flag parade, we asked students to put their national flags in the background during their classes. We got a lot of support from teachers as well as students and I managed to capture this in one of my classes during the day as seen in the photo below (LO5).