Posted on: May 12th 2017
On Thursday 27th April we enjoyed the return of International Evening at Norfolk House. In my previous role as Head of an international school, we celebrated the broad demographic of our community every year with a similar event. When Dina and I decided to return to the UK, we both knew that we would miss the international flavour of the school in Cairo. However, it has been wonderful to find a comparable, broad demographic in the Norfolk House community and our International Evening was a delightful celebration of our diversity.
Over the course of the weeks building up to the event, children from across the school were involved in projects and activities into their own heritage and other cultures. Many of our parents worked incredibly hard to put on stalls showcasing their countries with activities for the children, performances, artefacts, costumes, information and, of course, extravagant food. We had almost 20 countries represented from across the globe and it really was a true expression of internationalism, which was really wonderful, especially in the current climate of significant international uncertainty. Families from Infant Community through to Form 6 were involved in working together to make the evening such a success. I know many of our families really enjoyed being able to meet other families from across the school and connect with others from a similar heritage.
The children had a fabulous time finding out about the different cultures, showing off their costumes and sampling the wide range of food on offer from Chinese spring rolls, Scottish tablet to mealworm croquettes! Parents commented on the excellent questioning from some children when talking about their countries and their enthusiasm to complete the activities and try new foods. I certainly learnt a great deal about the different countries, but most importantly we all learnt how fortunate we are to be part of such a diverse community. The evening demonstrated that there are no minorities or majorities at Norfolk House, just a brilliant mix of people from a wide range of cultures.
I want to extend a special thank you to a number of people: firstly to Mr. Phil Smith for managing the logistics of the event, all the parents that donated their time, energy and food to the stalls, to the ladies of the Friends of Norfolk House who generously provided a free bar and to all the staff who got involved to help ensure the event was a success.
