More than 1650 locals flocked to Canterbury College in Waterford on Friday 14 June to celebrate United Nations Day.
The school’s diverse families cooked meals and prepared drinks from their many cultures, giving locals a literal taste of almost every continent.
Year 12 students, 300 staff, 945 parents, carers, siblings, relatives, family friends and alumni transformed the campus into a one-day multicultural festival.
The school’s principal, Dan Walker, said United Nations Day was not a “typical” school event.
“As an event that now attracts nearly 2,900 participants, it is enormous and welcoming,” Mr Walker said.
“Our school is in the centre of Logan City, the most diverse city in Queensland, and one of the most diverse in Australia.
“And that is why UN Day at Canterbury College is so important, as it works from the basic assumption that from all the lands on earth, many chose to make Australia their home.
“Yet we all still hold onto the culture, language, kinship, tradition and religion from our past.”
After humble beginnings in 2020 under heavy COVID restrictions, UN Day is now the college’s largest event of the year.
It features 20 cuisines from across Africa, Polynesia and the Pacific Islands, the Americas, Western and Eastern Europe, Australasia and every Asian region – all prepared and served by the school’s parents and friends.
“When we celebrated this event for the first time in 2020, there were four dance numbers and about 40 plastic chairs laid out in front of the school canteen,” Mr Walker said.
“Most in the community didn’t even know it was on, and at the end of that day, the organising teacher Mr Chris Nield and I thought we ‘might’ be onto something but weren’t even sure it would happen again in 2021.
“But it has grown, boy oh boy, it has grown – I can now see a future when this event could be one of the pre-eminent cultural and food festivals in Logan.”
Complementing the global food and drink stalls was a performance schedule covering dances, music and songs from Malaysia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Samoa, India, Tonga, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Cook Islands, Fiji and Africa.
Senior school global studies teacher Jennifer Wu was the event’s guest speaker and reflected on her 10 years of experience in Australia.
She is Taiwanese-born, with a Korean husband she met while they were both working in Japan.
Other activities included a special First Nations dance performance, Indigenous weaving, Indian henna tattoos, and an interactive digital “Map Of Origin” where guests plotted their traditional home cities on a world map.
