MULTICULTURAL WEEK

CULTURAL DIVERSITY CELEBRATED

Initiative highlights minority groups on campus

Grace Jennings | Staff Reporter

The Bishop Kenny community observed its first annual Diversity Celebration Week. Diversity Student Union President Winston Peele orchestrated the weeklong event from Feb. 22 to Feb. 26. According to Peele, its purpose is to shed light on the variety of cultures among members of the student body.

“We have four major minority [groups] that attend here,” Peele explained. “The Black community, the Hispanic/ Latino community, the Asian/ Island Pacific community and the Middle Eastern/Arabic community.” Peele and the Student Union group designed the week to highlight each culture, in both academic and recreational ways.

“From the academic perspective, teachers were sent the outline to give a fiveto-eight minute talk about a person that impacted the subject they are teaching,” Peele said.

Seniors Olivia Farah and Teressa Elhajj read about Arabic history during morning announcements on Thursday.

This gave students an informative lesson to go along with the festivities of the week.

“Once students entered the lunchroom, they got the celebration feeling.” Peele said. “[The school lunches] featured dishes from each culture and put on projectors of presentations talking about different people that impacted the community.”

Each unique culture was assigned a weekday, ending with BK United on Friday. The Diversity Student Union also played music from genres influenced by each culture during lunch mods. “The whole inspiration behind Diversity Week was to celebrate all of the minorities that go to our school,” Peele said. The Diversity Student Union sent out a survey on Friday March 5 for students to give input on what they enjoyed about the event and offer any suggestions for improvement. “I am really hoping that this [week] will become an annual thing because we want all minorities to know that we are here to celebrate you,” Peele said.