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Syrian refugee students celebrate Vaisaiki at Senator Reid Elementary

16/4/2016

1 Comment

 
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Earlier this week, Senator Reid Elementary hosted a Vaisaiki celebration with their high school LA Matheson as part of a pilot program they are doing with their school called "The Next 100 Years". They brought in a DJ and invited students from each grade level to come up to the front for a dance off. Naturally, the kids loved it!

However, for 9 Syrian refugee students who arrived just last week, the experience was a bit overwhelming at first and hard to for them to connect to. As one can expect, it would be rather intimidating for a new student - refugee or otherwise - to come to a different school where familiar faces would be few and far between. Add to this malaise is the fact that all the other students in the school are speaking in a different language and celebrating a cultural celebration that may be foreign to most Syrian-born students. Understandably, the Syrian refugee students were very shy and quiet, but soon this all changed.

One young, thoughtful student approached her teacher, Jennifer Jotie, and asked if they could play an Arabic song. Shortly thereafter, both the DJ and Punjabi teacher Gurpreet Bains found a song to play. According to Ms. Bains, what happened next melted her heart. Upon hearing the song in Arabic, the Syrian refugees came to the front and began dancing in front of the whole school to the applause and cheers of everyone present. Ms. Bains wrote: "[It was] so great to see these very new students all get up to dance in front of the school and be so excited about it. What a wonderful way to build community without a need to know English."

Senator Reid Elementary is expecting to welcome another three Syrian refugees this week.

BCATML thanks Gurpreet Bains for sharing this heart-warming story.

If your school is using culture to bridge the gap, we would love to hear about it.

^RL
1 Comment
Kat Ling
16/4/2016 02:53:02 pm

Hi, just wanted to make a correction to the article: It was I think one of the older refugee students who asked for them to play a song, not sure how she got her message across to her teacher, but she did. And through a collaborated effort by Jennifer Jotie and Mindy Sangha (teachers at Senator Reid) they managed to get Gurpreet Bains and the DJ to please play an Arabic song. So nice to see both of them jump on board to do this despite Vaisaiki not being an Arabic celebration.

Also, another correction. We have received all refugees. Nine the first week of April and 3 more last week. Not sure how many will still be arriving.

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