Harmony Day

On Thursday the 21st of March, our school community came together, celebrating Harmony Day — a day where we recognise and embrace the beautiful diversity found within our school community. Since 1999, coinciding with the United Nations International Day for the elimination of racial discrimination, Harmony Day has established itself as an inclusive and respectful day, where millions of communities around the world come together in harmony. From the beginning, more than 70 000 events and activities have been held across the country, from the smallest childcare centres to the largest businesses.

This year, the Student Leadership Group worked very hard to make Harmony Day happen. We started off with looking at the colour orange, and focusing on its meaning and how we may be able to embed this into our ideas. Orange is a symbol of social communication and meaningful conversations. It also relates to the freedom of ideas and encouragement for mutual respect. With nearly half of our citizens and residents being born overseas, we felt that this was an important theme to exhibit, hence our idea of creating a large scaled world map, where the students were able to mark where they are from, which highlights the diversity within our school, breaking down the stereotype of racial discrimination, focusing on how “We Are One, But We Are Many”. We also sold Harmony Day T-shirts, which were bright orange, reiterating the meaning of “social communication” and connectedness. Furthermore, we held a “guess the amount of lollies in the jar” competition, where students were encouraged to donate 50c to try and guess the number of orange lollies. Whoever guessed a number that was closest to the total, would win the entire jar. All the funds raised from the celebration of Harmony Day will be donated to Timor Leste — an amazing cause that gives to those who don’t have, and also recognising the cultural diversity within the country itself.

Overall, Harmony Day 2019 was a successful day, with the help of student involvement and participation, we were able to make this possible. I would like to say a huge thank you to the Student Leadership group for their dedication and assistance, and to Georgia Bettiol who gave us the support and encouragement to bring our ideas to life.

Katherine Bruzzese