This year interested persons from Syria, India, Cuba, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other countries of the world gathered together within the framework of the thematic event organized by the volunteers. Although more than ten different languages were heard during the event, this did not prevent the participants to hear and understand each other.
"The participants at first used a large-scale map to show the ways they got from their homeland to Latvia or how they travelled to especially important journeys. Besides, regions and countries where the mother language of each participant is spoken were marked out on the map", Lauma Busa (Lauma Buša), volunteer coordinator, tells about one of the creative workshops.
Afterwards, the participants were asked to choose and sing a song in their mother language to others. "Although at the beginning people were a little bit shy, already after a short while, encouraging each other, the participants sang the songs in Latvian, Tamil, Punjabi, Arabic, Russian, English, Tigrinya, Spanish and other languages. Although the lyrics often could not be understood by most of the participants, the melodies implied that many songs were about love, a family and other values important to the participants."
At the end of the event the participants joined together in a song in the Latvian language so it could help them understand Latvia better. After the event quite a few participants admitted that it was very nice to show others at least a small part of their culture and that, in fact, one of the few languages that can unite people regardless of their homeland, language and mentality, is music.
The activity was held within the framework of the project "Information Centre for Immigrants" which is implemented by the Society "Shelter "Safe House"" by support of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. Since 18 May 2016 volunteers of the project have organized in total 17 informative and cohesive events in various regions of Latvia, including, World Refugee Day, culture evenings of various nations. Grant Agreement No.PMIF/12/2016/1/1.
*International Mother Language Day is annual observance held on 21 February, first announced by UNESCO in November 1999. Its goal is to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism (information from Wikipedia).
Information was prepared by: Rasa Salina (Rasa Saliņa), Communications and Social Media Expert, e-mail: rasa.salina@gmail.com
