Festival of Nations - It’s a wrap!
The 9th Annual International Institute’s Festival of Nations was an enormous success! Tower Grove Park was filled to its brim with more than 100,000 people who came together for the multicultural festival. One festivalgoer described it as “Everybody’s party!” More than 70 cultures were represented in the Festival’s dance, art, food, crafts, music and sport.
There were some special volunteers at the Festival of Nations this year – five newly arrived refugees from Bhutan gave their time in Citizens’ Square, a civic engagement activity center. These refugees were resettled by the International Institute St. Louis less than a year ago, and they are already giving back! One Bhutanese volunteer, Rangha, said “It was wonderful to volunteer in the United States of America.” You can read more about the Bhutanese refugee situation here.
Here are links to just a few articles/videos about the Festival:
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
What better way to celebrate diversity?! I am quite certain that this is an enormous undertaking for the staff and volunteers of International Institute St. Louis but it is definitely worth all of the trials and work involved. Kudos to you IISTL for continuing to provide such wonderful resources to immigrants and refugees while allowing us locals to learn/experience the different cultures!
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I think it’s great that although immigrants come here and are immediately surrounded by mainstream Ameria they still hold dear their values, beliefs, and culture. It’s like the salad bowl theory where all kinds of ingredients are combined in a bowl to make up one salad, but each ingredient is unique itself. Each different ingredient when eaten all by itself it tastes completely different than a mouthful of all ingredients, although that is good to. Steve Salarano