Harmony Day (Australia) is celebrated on this day and is about bringing people together to celebrate Australia’s community harmony, participation and cultural diversity.
Source: www.multiculturalcalendars.com
Part of a posting series on multicultural events for 2009.
Filed under: Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion
Hello Mayor Karen, Thanks for recognizing our Harmony Day…how about in 2010 we link up a Guelph school and an Australian school to celebrate this wonderful vent.
Bob
Isn’t the most significant day of diversity and inclusion on March 21 the International Day for the Elimination of Racism Discrimination? When I look at Guelph school boards and their lack of participation in wider issues of diversity such as the Equity Summit and examine their very weak anti-racism policies that focus on ‘victimization’ instead of prevention I feel that our city needs to place greater emphasis on being a more inclusive space. Often our media fairs poorly when it comes to exploring issues of diversity and examples of racism across all levels of education in Guelph has far too many incidents of racism. This should be a focus for our city and to create an equitable space that celebrates diversity as the great social benefit to any society we need to recognize and dismantle the barriers to equity – that starts with acknowledging racism exists and who is responsible for racism. I know that white people have a hard time speaking to this topic but it’s one the citizens of Guelph need to work on instead of celebrating the surface and often exploitational approach to culture as found in the many schools who take indigenous cultures and turn them into holiday events where adults encourage children to wear grass skirts and sing happy songs instead of actually valuing these cultures. Here in Guelph our isolation puts other cultures’ children at risk by trivializing or not even acknowledging racism. I was pretty sad to see that your blog did not make this the dominate day as we can’t be happy together if we can’t talk about and eliminate hatred.
Hello Robert – I am relying on a multicultural calendar I received at the beginning of the year for my postings. I suspect it misses many other important dates and hope that residents will take the opportunity to post information about them. Thank you for bringing attention to March 21st and the International Day for the Elimination of Racism and Discrimination.