Last week, approximately 1,100 students, parents, teachers and staff came to school on a Saturday to celebrate our sixth annual “Global Child Day”. The event was organised and run by Parents Organisation Pudong, and parents of all nationalities set up country booths where lots of different activities were organised to educate visitors about each country.

Each year, the theme of this event changes and this year’s theme was “The way things used to be”. Everyone was invited to wear his or her country’s traditional clothing. Organisers ran booths that showed everyone neat things about their culture before modern times. Some countries taught about the environment before pollution, some organised old-fashioned games, some showcased native cultures… some even taught us how to weave shoes out of straw!

This year’s parent organiser, Tess Robinson, co-ordinated a team of 30 people to manage the different parts of the event. The parents produced “passports” with a page written by each participating country to teach children about each offered activity. Children could get their passports chopped by participating in booth activities.

The day’s activities also included a national dress and flag parade, performances ranging from music, songs and dances to puppet shows, and a global food hall with free food from 32 countries. People laughed and danced, learned and played together all afternoon. Ms. Robinson believes that the purpose of Global Child Day is to “build community and bridges between people of different cultures, by celebrating our similarities and educating each other about our differences.”

All the visitors seemed to have truly enjoyed the event. The arts and crafts games and other activities helped build a sense of global awareness while also being a lot of fun. Many of the Secondary students worked as volunteers at different booths, enjoyed the event and thought of it as a complete success.

Spencer, YCIS Shanghai Year 8 Student