World Cultural Day: Celebrating diversity – Alexis Irvine, The Tiffin Girls’ School

A lot of planning went into the day, and last Friday was the culmination of months of hard work from the Diversity leads and staff involved. Events across the day included an International Food Stall, where students brought in traditional food from their culture, which was then sold at lunchtime, with all proceeds being donated towards The Tiffin Girls’ School’s partner school in Nepal. All of the food was nut-free, with vegetarian and vegan options and food priced at £1, to encourage everyone to partake in the celebration of their and their friends’ culture. The food stall featured foods from all around the world- as the Diversity leads themselves said, buying something from here was “a great way to learn and appreciate the diversity shared within our school.”

A face painting stall in the school’s foyer was also present in the day’s itinerary, before school and at recess, where students and staff could get a flag painted on their cheek, to proudly wear throughout the celebrations. Flags cost 50p each, and once again the proceeds went towards the school’s partner school in Nepal.

Each form within the school also participated in a competition: one where they decorated their form room door in response to a brief of a certain country that they were meant to honour on the door. For example, the form ’11B’ was given the brief of Mexico, and decorated their door in accordance with this theme. A panel of judges then voted on which form best responded to their brief. Due to the loaning of several cultural artefacts and family heirlooms to the school, from students and staff, the Diversity leads were also able to set up a ‘World Cultural Day’ display in the foyer, which fully embraced the diverse variety of cultural backgrounds present amongst the school community. The day’s events drew to a close with the Talent Show at lunchtime, featuring a variety of musicians and dancers from different cultural backgrounds, who performed traditional dances or musical compositions in front of their peers. Admission to the talent show was free and it was definitely one of the day’s highlights, however another strong contender, and perhaps the thing that made The Tiffin Girls’ School’s ‘World Cultural Day’ stand out from cultural celebrations at other schools, was the removal of the requirement to wear school uniform on the day, with the school instead encouraging students to wear something that reflects their culture. While many students opted to wear traditional clothing on the day, others opted to wear an outfit specific to a special religious or cultural event, such as a saree, with others also arriving at school in sporting shirts showing support for a local or international team.   

When she was asked about what her favourite aspect of they day was, student Alvira Salman, 15, replied that she liked seeing everyone in their cultural clothing, saying that “everyone felt really pretty, really self-confident and proud of their culture and they felt elegant and nice in their clothes, and I think that’s quite empowering because it goes against the beauty standard and shows that everyone can look really nice. Especially in traditional clothes, it’s like ‘their culture is part of what makes them pretty’.”

At The Tiffin Girls’ School, the students and staff celebrated World Cultural Day last Friday as an opportunity to expand their knowledge of cultural diversity and emphasise how this diversity within the school only strengthens their community. World Cultural Day at The Tiffin Girls’ School this year is certainly an occasion to remember, for all the right reasons. Do you see your school or workplace celebrating anything like this anytime soon? Maybe you can advocate for one such World Cultural Day, just like the Diversity leads at The Tiffin Girls’ School did…