A Multicultural Day was organised at the Queen Elizabeth II High School during Enrichment Week on 18 July 2017. The Multicultural Day entitled Multicultural Mela (Mela – is Hindi for festival/fair) was jointly organised by Usha Kishore (English Teacher and Key Stage 5 Co-ordinator for English) and Jeff McCubbin (Deputy Director of Key Stage 3). The School has been holding multicultural festivals for a few years now for students in Year 8 (age 12-13) during the final enrichment week. Many members of staff are involved in running various workshops and performances and local artists, dancers, musicians and artisans are also invited.
This year’s workshops included African Art, European Cuisine, Craft and Skit based on Medieval Battles, Manx Dancing, Manx Music, a play based on the Tower of Babel, Performance Poetry and Indian Fusion Dancing. The workshops were in the morning and there was a performance in the afternoon of all the performing arts workshops.
The Multicultural Days are held in order to create awareness of other cultures and to promote the idea of equality in diversity among students, very much in tune with the current cultural climate of the Isle of Man. The students have the opportunity to celebrate Manx Culture and to experience other cultures in the form of music, dance, performance, literature, art, craft and food. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and successful day.
