Celebrating Diversity Archives | Page 3 of 4

Happy Lunar New Year: Celebrating the Year of the Ox

February 10, 2021 by Melanie

The Lunar New Year, Chinese Chunjie, Vietnamese Tet, Korean Solnal, Tibetan Losar, also called Spring Festival, is celebrated during the second new moon after the winter solstice, usually between January 21 and February 20 on the Gregorian calendar.

The festival is typically celebrated in Asian countries, beginning with the first new moon of the year and ending on the first full moon of the lunar calendar, 15 days later.

Lunar New Year, February 12

This year’s Lunar New Year begins February 12th, as we move into the Year of the Metal Ox. This year, the traditional parades and festivals will not be held around the world because of the pandemic, but here are a few rituals that are traditionally done to celebrate, to help you bring in this renowned celebration with fun and positivity.

Lunar New Year Activities

Visit family and friends – This tradition is so crucial that LNY travel is annually heralded as the ‘world’s largest human migration’. In 2019, 3 billion trips were projected to be made during the holiday season. With the pandemic, getting on zoom and arranging virtual family get togethers is where it’s at.

Share wealth with family – Red packets carrying cash gifts are given to friends and family. It is also tradition for children to give a gift to their grandparents / elders. Take a look at the history of the Red Envelope HERE.

Clear out last year’s clutter – In the days leading up to the Lunar New Year, the last year is washed away: windows, walls and furniture are all cleaned and dusted. However, all cleaning stops on the first day of the Lunar New Year, so good fortune is not swept away.

Hang red decorations – it is said, according to lunar new year mythology, that red is hung to ward off Nian – a lion-like monster that is afraid of the colour red.

Watch a traditional dance – Further to the red decorations, Nian also doesn’t like loud noises, so drums and cymbals accompany a flying lion dance outdoors. This year, enjoy the dance from home through youtube!

Enjoy this Gallery – and discuss with your loved ones what the lunar new year means for you.

Gallery: Lunar New Year celebrations from around the world

Create Origami Oxen!

A very happy Lunar New Year to you all!

The Future is Now

February 2, 2021 by Melanie

Every February, people in Canada are invited to participate in Black History Month festivities and events that honour the legacy of Black Canadians and their communities.

The 2021 theme for Black History Month is: “The Future is Now”. As parents and caregivers of the next generation, it is indeed the future that we are creating.. Black History Month gives us all an opportunity to honour where we come from and look to the future.

What is Black History Month

Black History Month is about honouring the enormous contributions that Black people have made, and continue to make, in all sectors of society. It is about celebrating resilience, innovation, and determination to work towards a more inclusive and diverse Canada—a Canada in which everyone has every opportunity to flourish.

Black History Month in Toronto

The City of Toronto Archives is proud to share its Black History in Toronto webpage, which was launched in November 2020. Created with the support of the Ontario Black History Society and the City of Toronto’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit, the webpage highlights the history of Black communities, activists and leaders, service organizations and much more!

The Toronto Public Library also celebrates Black History with year-round events and programs that honour Black heritage and consider the historical significance and contemporary contributions of Black activists and artists from around the world. In fact, our very own Parkdale Library is home to The Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection, featuring over 16,000 books, DVDs, CDs, newspapers and magazines for adults, children, and teens. The materials focus on the Black and Caribbean historical and cultural experience, with a special emphasis on Canadian content.

Take a look at upcoming events, reading lists, videos, and podcast episodes tpl.ca/blackhistory, such as this reading list for young readers: https://torontopubliclibrary.typepad.com/kids-books/2019/01/20-canadian-childrens-books-for-black-history-month.html

Additional Resources for Children

And, for those of you who would like to take the conversation deeper, CBC has a great feature to help parents and caregivers walk through the history and key messages around black history month:

https://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc2/the-feed/all-about-black-history-month

Staying connected to each other during these challenging times is more important now, than ever. Stories have the power to build connections when they are inclusive of all voices.

So take a look at these resources, dive into the stories, and have some discussions with family and friends. Together we can create a different future, and it starts now.

Finding Creative Ways to Celebrate Diwali

November 13, 2020 by Melanie

Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights, begins Saturday November 13th and is celebrated by Hindus and other faiths for typically five days. With over 2000 people identifying as Hindu in the Parkdale-High Park area alone, our local Diwali celebrations fostered a sense of home and community for those who observe the holiday, while increasing awareness, understanding, and compassion among children, parents and caregivers who observe other holidays.

Public health officials across the country are urging people to stay home and celebrate Diwali exclusively with members of their family household to limit the spread of COVID-19. So while we all work on protecting our most vulnerable, we need to find new ways to celebrate a festival that is spent traditionally in the embrace of family and friends.

At Creating Together, we celebrated with a live Diwali themed story-time, and incredible Diwali crafts to help you celebrate with your little ones at home, between zoom calls with family members 🙂

We hope you will enjoy the recordings and take some time to foster a sense of home and community for you and your family, especially during these challenging times.

Orange Shirt Day: Because Every Child Matters

September 26, 2020 by Melanie

September 30th is Orange Shirt Day, “a day when we honour the Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools in Canada and learn more about the history of those schools”. (CBC.ca).

Between the 1860s and 1990s, approximately 150,000 Métis, Inuit and First Nations children were sent to church-run residential schools. The schools harmed Indigenous children by removing them from their families, forcing them to speak English or French instead of their ancestral languages, disconnecting them from their culture and traditions and forcing them to adopt Christianity in order to assimilate into Canadian society. The government has since acknowledged that this approach was wrong, cruel and ineffective, and offered an official apology to the Indigenous people of Canada in 2008.

Why an Orange Shirt?

The legacy of Residential Schools is still felt by survivors (former students), their families and communities, and on September 30th, the time when children were taken to these schools. But why an orange shirt?

The “orange shirt” in Orange Shirt Day refers to the new shirt that Phyllis Webstad was given to her by her grandmother for her first day of school at St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in British Columbia. When Phyllis got to school, they took away her clothes, including her new shirt. It was never returned. To Phyllis, the colour orange has always reminded her of her experiences at residential school and, as she has said, “how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying and no one cared.” The message that Phyllis wants to pass along on Orange Shirt Day — and every day — is that every child matters. Orange Shirt Day was started by Phyllis to educate people about residential schools and fight racism and bullying.

What You Can Do

Share Phyllis’ story. You can watch it on YouTube or below:

2. Continue learning about what happened to Indigenous Peoples. Take a look at Phyliss’ book “The Orange Shirt Story“, written for younger people, and these 12 books, recommended for adults by CBC.

3. Join over 10,000 teachers and over 500,000 of Canadian youth on September 30 to honour Residential School Survivors, their families and communities at an extraordinary virtual event to support and encourage meaningful Reconciliation across Canada. For Grades 5 through 12: https://education.nctr.ca/

4. Wear your orange shirt on September 30th – not only because of the pain and tragedy that was caused, but to recognize the strength, resilience and healing of the indigenous peoples and our commitment to creating a better future, where every child matters.

Black History Month 2020: Going Forward, Guided by Our Past

February 4, 2020 by Melanie

Across the country, February is the month that Canadians honour and celebrate the legacy of Black Canadians, with Black History Month.

Join us as we celebrate, for a special snack on Friday the 21st!

This Year’s Theme

With a different theme selected each year, the theme of the Government of Canada’s Black History Month campaign is “Canadians of African Descent: Going forward, guided by the past”. Feet forward, head turned backward, the Sankofa bird reflects on the past to build a successful future.

Rita Cox Collection, Parkdale Public Library

Resources to Learn and Share

This gives all of us an invitation to learn ore about our history, so we can move forward knowing from whence we came. Here in our own community, we are fortunate to hold the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection at the Parkdale Public Library. This collection is recognized as one of the most significant Black and Caribbean heritage collections in Canada. The collection features over 16,000 print and audiovisual materials for adults, children, and teens about the Black and Caribbean historical and cultural experience. So in the spirit of literacy and connecting with your community, go and check out this incredible collection this month with your family!