International Club

The International Club started 2 years ago as a peer mentoring and orientation program for new Canadians to our school. Now we have grown to include activities regarding cultural awareness and social gatherings. Our most recent project was to identify the number of different countries and languages in our school. Now we want to share this information with our school and community. A local paper has agreed to cover this as a human interest story. As well, the administration has agreed that we could create a presentation to the school body about the cultural diversity of our school. We would like to use flags in the presentation from the 33 countries we have represented here at Holy Heart and then permanently display them in our auditorium. There after, any new student who arrives at our school we would then display the new flag with all other. Thus, creating an immediate sense of inclusion for new students and permanently displaying our pride of cultural diversity that our school represents.

Update (September 24, 2011)

The International Club's Diversity assembly was a smashing success! Our assembly was an our opportunity to celebrate or multicultural school. We have over 100 students born in countries outside Canada in our school of approximately 900 students. There are 33 different countries with 23 different languages spoken within our walls.

At the beginning of the assembly there was a parade of flags. Each country represented in our school had a student carry their flag to the stage until all 33 students with their flags were on stage. It was a spectacular display of colour and pride. The assembly continued with performances from various individuals and a groups. The final act was a video montage of students of Holy Heart and what their multi-cultural school means to them.

This assembly was considered by many staff and students as the most beautiful and meaningful they had ever seen.