The third week in November is dedicated as Multicultural Week in British Columbia.
The 2015 British Columbia Multicultural Awards event that took place on Friday, November 20 included an afternoon session of Inspirational Talks presented by four past winners of the Provincial Nesika Award and the renamed British Columbia Multicultural Award.
This is an annual event hosted by the Government of B.C. and the Multicultural Advisory Council (MAC) to recognize and honour the multicultural accomplishments of individuals, organizations and businesses in our province.
The Awards event allows us to celebrate and applaud British Columbia’s diversity and multicultural communities in a setting that brings British Columbia’s multicultural champions together to thank them for their combined efforts towards making the province a more inclusive place to live.
Deidre Heim, Chief Editor TAN Networks Co, Bruce Curtis, Chief Administrator Comox Valley Community Justice Centre, Winnie L. Cheung, President of PCHC Museum of Migration Society and Jorge Salazar, Project Manager Vancouver Foundation, Peter Fassbender, Minister of Community, Sport, Cultural Development relayed their life and business experiences in our democratic and diverse mosaic community.
It was said that MULTICULTURISM is the existence, acceptance, or promotion of multiple cultural traditions within a single jurisdiction, usually considered in terms of the culture associated with an ethnic group. Multicultural ideologies and policies vary widely, ranging from the advocacy of equal respect to the various cultures in a society, to a policy of promoting the maintenance of cultural diversity, to policies in which people of various ethnic and religious groups are addressed by the authorities by the group to which they belong. Multiculturalism that promotes maintaining the distinctiveness of multiple cultures is often contrasted to other settlement policies such as social integration, cultural assimilation and racial segregation. It is described as a ‘salad bowl’ and ‘cultural mosaic’.
Furthermore DIVERSITY is the condition of having or being composed of differing elements, variety especially and interesting enough MOSAIC is a Noun and is described as something made up of different things that together form a pattern.
The question was raised: can we then say that the Mosaic is the ultimate masterpiece of our cohesive collaboration as a multicultural society? If so what are we doing to contribute to this Mosaic? The latter is punctual and fits into the imminent challenges that our Province will face when we open our doors to the many Syrian Refugees.
How cohesive will our collaboration as a multicultural society truly be? Will we all do our part and undertake the task of extending welcoming arms and lending assistance with making the newcomers feel at home in their new country? All citizens who came to Canada from war torn countries know this a land that promises much hope, peace and prosperity to it’s citizens – this land is your land this land is my land, this land is made for you and me!
