Parade of Nations with a twist

CHERISE MARKS

student, multicultural committee I think it’s fair to say 2020 has been a year in which we’ve all been presented with many challenges, and the St Peters Multicultural Committee is no exception. At the beginning of the year, we were eager to jump into planning for this year’s Multicultural Week and various other events throughout the year, oblivious to the challenges that would arise due to COVID-19.

When At Home Learning began, the committee took to Zoom meetings, gettingtogether during our lunch breaks on a Tuesday every week. We adapted quickly to the temporary change in our lives, beginning to publish a fortnightly newsletter to keep everyone updated on various global and local multicultural events. This proved to be quite a success.

However, when we learned that this global pandemic would be sticking around for quite a bit longer, the prospect of having to cancel the beloved Parade of Nations became very real. In the Committee we were determined to keep this going so, like many other events during this time, we went online. This in itself did certainly not come without its multitude of challenges – beginning with the fact that none of us had any expertise in filming and producing. We took our ideas to Communications who willingly gave us advice on how to best begin preparing for the task ahead of us. Planning kicked off and thanks to the eager students of St Peters, we had unprecedented numbers sign up to carry flags. Unfortunately, due to restrictions we were forced to cut down

numbers quite significantly. This pushed us to think outside of the box. With the flexibility of pre-recording this event, we were able to include photos into the Parade, including that of our Primary school students and some students who are in isolation overseas, unable to attend school. These unanticipated circumstances have no doubt presented us with several obstacles, however we persevered through these to ultimately produce a Parade of Nations with a ‘fresh, new look.’ This mindset further embraces our Multicultural Week theme of 'Many Nations, One Family'. Although we could not be together, we are one, connected by our uniqueness.