Students from across the region attended the Owen Sound Farmers’ Market today to learn about the importance of diversity.
One of the organizers of the Grey Bruce One World Festival Colleen Purdon says the event, which ran from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., is a celebration of diversity and building an inclusive community.
“It’s having a whole lot of fun learning that difference is a great thing for everybody,” says Purdon. “Since the beginning, we started working on issues of racism and discrimination in Grey Bruce, which is a problem and remains a problem, but we decided we just want to turn the whole thing around, start talking about inclusion as a very positive thing and diversity is something we all have.”
She says they wanted to bring this subject matter to youth and for the 14 years the festival has been running, they have worked in partnership with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario to bring students to the event.
“We have lots of activities and fun things and performances, a lot of the schools perform,” says Purdon.
She adds a number of local organizations set up booths and made presentations to the students, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Community Living Owen Sound and District, the Gichi-Name Wiikwedong Reconciliation Garden Committee, and many more.
Students were also given chalk to colour the sidewalks, attended the Owen Sound and North Grey Union Public Library for a diverse film festival, and visited the Tom Thomson Art Gallery for a community art project.
While she wasn’t sure how many schools were in attendance, she estimates about 1,000 students from across the region visited the farmers’ market for the festival.
“The key take away is that being different is not a problem and is something to celebrate and if everybody was the same, how unbelievably boring that would be,” says Purdon. “Most children have no trouble with diversity, they are not worried about it at all. As we grow older, we can keep that in our hearts that differences are good for everybody.”