Harmony, resilience and the power of food

Enjoy this blog from DPA’s VP of Content, Bilge Ozgun

Welcome to Harmony Week. 

The message of Harmony Day is ‘everyone belongs’. The Day aims to engage people to participate in their community, respect cultural and religious diversity and foster a sense of belonging for everyone.As we have just started our Harmony celebrations at WMQ but hopefully there will be more events to come as long as the emergency situations allow us. Natural disasters and emergency situations have an enormous effect on people and community. Resilience is a big word here. How do we maintain resilience now and in the future?

I hope this message puts you a smile on your face. There is significant value in sharing food and bringing people together. Harmony Day, friendship and food sharing. How fabulous is that keeping the momentum going especially as that people’s dignity may be affected due to increasing health concerns?  It is important being cautious and well prepared in every circumstance but do you know, Ethnic food-sharing is scientifically good for people?

Yesterday, we enjoyed the power of ethnic food and enjoy the richness of cultural difference, listening to different recipes from different cultures;

recipes including South Korean Kimchi,  Chinese Dumplings, Sudanese Aside, Turkish Manti, African Casawa soup, Indian Manga Kheer,  Burmese tea leaf salad, and Somalian rice topping,  Pakistan chicken biryani and many more. We travelled to different countries and tasted different cuisines. Food brings people together formally across cultures to celebrate Australia's cultural diversity for the purpose of developing intercultural awareness...

My reflections in yesterday’s community English class through Harmony day gathering: people who experienced tremendous difficulties in their life, war, terrorism,   are well prepared and ready for the unexpected. It is interesting to see people who experience the worst situations in their life, how they can handle the difficult situations, disasters much calmer than the others.  Due to increasing health concerns and directives, if you are cancelling your Harmony Day event, not sharing the ethnic food, you might want to consider sharing recipes from different cultures and continue supporting your cultural diversity initiatives in your organisation through an online recipe book.

Let’s move on and continue doing what we need to do and be prepared for unexpected. This is all we can do. Be prepared and continue helping and supporting people’s dignity, we need more hope and positive-sounding messages that encourage people and continue doing what they need to do. I am happy to share a recipe that you can make with your family during the weekend. Now put a smile on your face and tomorrow is another day!