Multicultural Mother’s Day, as a wrap-up event of the Colours of Adamsdown Exercise, took place at St German’s Church Hall last Saturday afternoon.
I have promised Patricia from the Resource Centre who organised this event to attend this event as a volunteer. Meanwhile, this will be a great story to light up the homepage on Monday. So I went there with my camera, expecting there wouldn’t be many people although Patricia tried to get as many people as possible to come in. However, to my surprise, when I arrived before the event started, the church hall was already almost full.
It was really wonderful to see our event has attracted so many people from different ethnic backgrounds in Adamsdown. A lot of ladies came to discuss in groups about their life and kids while kids were having good fun at face painting , bouncy castle and art&craft workshop where they could make Mother’s Day cards by themselves with the help of some young volunteers.
I was busy taking pictures but soon I had to take up the duty to help take care of the kids at the bouncy castle. Kids were so excited and active to come to jump in the bouncy castle. One volunteer was definitely not enough since the number of the kids in the castle shouldn’t exceed 8 one time and we had to make sure bigger kids and small ones were seperated in different turns to jump in case of safety. But happy kids were trying to climb into the castle all the time and I had to hold those cute little ones back together with another volunteer while bigger boys were jumping around.
I felt a bit tired after some time but it was great fun. I actually have never dealt with kids before and I knew they could be very naughty and noisy. But that is the way it is. Seeing those happy healthy kids enjoying themselves was absolutely joyful for me as well.
Patricia’s friend, a Chinese lady gave a fantastic performance of Mongolian dance at the event with traditional inner-Mongolian music from China. I shot a video and it seemed people were so intrigued by her exotic performance. For me, it just made me feel so warm to hear music from my homeland. I don’t know how to explain the feeling, I was so happy and proud and also a bit homesick.
It was also amazing to see how creative and talented kids were at the art&craft workshop. They made their own Mother’s Day cards and presented to me proudly. Looking at the lovely cards, somehow I pitied how limited my imagination is compared with the kids!
Face painting was so popular with kids. The long queue never ended. The lady who did this was working there for 3 hours almost without a pause. Again I was amazed she could paint different patterns on a kid’s face rapidly. It was fun for kids to run around as spider man or African tribal man.
The last but not least, food was served at 2:30 and it was just terrific! The food was sponsored by Central African Cuisine Association in Broadway and another restaurant in Heath(forgive me I forgot the name). I really loved the exotic flavour of the food, infused with the scent of curry. I tried all kinds of food at present there, African, Arabic and Indian style. Multicultural food is excellent especially African bananas, I still haven’t figured out what special way they used to make bananas like vegetable. Anyway, it is just delicious and beyond my description, you’ve got to give a try.
The event ended with Flow’s percussion performance and kids were so enthusiastic taking part to try on the drums and sing together with Flow. It was a nice day for me. As a journalist, I could really participate in the local community activity as a volunteer. This kind of experience is really valuable. I always believe being part of your object and really getting to know them can give journalists more sources and inspiration to produce good journalism.
As an international person myself, I do feel close to people from ethnic minorities in Adamsdown. I understand their problems quite well. I know most of the time they are just isolated in their own small communities. However, this event is a great example to show how local community should do to get more people from different backgrounds involved and make them feel at home. We need more attention, more care and more warmth.
By Shanshan