Unity, cooperation, diversity, help, participation, words with which the First Cork Multicultural Open Door Event on Saturday 26 November began. The Event was organized by immigrants of Cork City for the following purposes: inclusion into Irish society, a sharing of the various cultures of immigrant communities living in Cork with other Corkonians, to enable immigrants who didn’t participate anywhere before to organize, participate and make friends during joint activity.
Our goals were achieved, and though during these four months of our efforts in the organization of the Event there was a huge set of challenges to meet and problems to overcome. The idea of the festival was carried through by a range of people and was a great success on the day.
The event committee would like to thank the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Cork City Partnership and Western Union Money Transfer for this unique opportunity to bring Corkonians of different nationalities and cultures that now exist in this city together, and we would also like to thank everybody for their kind support in helping to raise our issues. See gallery for pictures
http://www.theimmigrant.org/gallery/p17_sectionid/3
Tania: I really enjoyed peoples’ faces as a result of my hard work. It was very colorful and warm Event, the atmosphere was very friendly and bright during the day and night, peoples come in without any expectation, but went out with wishes to come back next time. “Will you do it every weekend?” – one of the guests asked. For me it was most thanks I ever heard. And I think that is very important if you needed, welcome and has been thanked. And I would like to thank all the artists, musicians, participants and especially volunteers for helping us to make this Event happen and for their generosity and willingness to perform.
Olena: At the beginning of our work it was hard enough to find people, who were willing to participate. I think probably it is because most of immigrants don’t get positive feedback from society and don’t want to integrate in this way. But at the result we managed to deliver through active volunteerism and participation in the Event greatly impressed us all. Especially we were surprised by unity of the Polish and Lithuanian communities and appreciated the interest of Irish people. The most pleasant thing at the Event for me was that Irish people attended this celebration and demonstrated a really warm, friendly attitude.
Rebecca: It was great learning experience for me to organise a festival of this size, because it gave me a chance to meet many people from many different walks of life. I learned quite a bit about working with people from other communities, such as creating space for people to be able to express themselves and also learned how to work with a team of volunteers. I was really pleased with the amount of support we got from volunteers and local traders. It was good to see people getting involved, we weren’t about individuals, but were more interesting in creating a community where all forms of traditions were celebrated.
Vincent: Ireland is now a multicultural country where a lot of immigrants have made their home. As a result of this it is of utmost importance (to both the Immigrant and Irish communities) that they are made organise an event such as this to showcase and celebrate everything that is good and worthy of their culture in their new found home. I believe I and hopefully others who were at the event have learnt to appreciate that we all are all the same, we are all human beings, to appreciate our different and important gifts as an individual as well as a community of people, to appreciate, accept and celebrate our different but similar cultures. If we all say we want to live in a better future of peace and harmony then we all need to go out of our way ( and out of our old ways and unworkable belief systems ) to create that future that encompasses everyone in our society. We are all one. We all want the same things in life. We all want to be accepted with no strings attached. We all want to contribute positively and be a part of our new home, Ireland.
Dev: For me it was very important to take a chance to help and participate at the Event, because I have a lot of free time and find it very nice being with people of different cultures. At the same time I get a lot of fun out of such things as face painting, involvement in competitions, food tasting, venue decorating, flyer’s destitution in a team. It was possible for me to see what people are doing from inside of the activity, because if you are a guest you would never know how it was organised. And I was surprised that not every single community was able to participate with their cultural food at the Event, as I would like see and taste more variety of food. Hopefully next year they would be more open to join multicultural event.
Mary: I would like to say that a great deal of work went into trying to seek out performers from other cultures. It was a first for me, I feel enriched by the diversity of culture and talent I encountered. Most of the difficulty for me being that I would know, many local performers but not many of other nationalities. I enjoyed meeting, and talking to the representatives from the different cultural groups. My own boundaries were stretched and I greatly enjoyed the different bands that played. For those who performed, I must extend my thanks and to the others who were unable to play this year I hope next years event will be one you keep in mind. Everyone I spoke to, enjoyed the day. It is hopefully a start of a yearly event that will become a major cultural celebration. It is vital that the new people of Cork partake enthusiastically. It has a two fold importance in that it allows them to rejoice in their heritage and it helps all those who attend on the day to learn about it. Our lives are like a tapestry, each holds a thread, with the festival, we can weave all together to make a wonderful tapestry of a new, unfolding history of Cork.
Marina: I was pleased by the Event, my son was with me, he enjoyed the Event as well, he could see different things, such as ceramic statues, toys he never saw. When I was organising a children’s programme I was very happy to find few other people who have a very good spirit about to help on the event. I was very glad to take a part of the Event, because it was a chance to spend a quality time with children and understand their needs. We found out that children were very happy and interested to know and learn about different cultures. Children had an opportunity to see different flags, crafts and taste different food. We wanted to show them different cultures present in the city of Cork, because children are our future and we want to have brighter future without racism and misunderstanding in the society. I hope that we have achieved this.
