Canadian high school students will learn more about living harmoniously with cultural diversity now that a group of Action Canada Fellows has established a working model for high school cultural diversity workshops. Their two cultural diversity training conferences in Nova Scotia, designed as models for high school students across Canada, were not only extremely successful but have spawned a compelling network of people, organizations, and educators passionate about diversity training. Recognizing that multiculturalism is often touted but not always ‘lived’, three Action Canada Fellows hosted two pilot conferences for high school students in Nova Scotia in spring 2004. The first conference brought together 135 homogeneous students from Nova Scotia’s South Shore school district to learn about aboriginal culture, Islam, homophobia, African Nova Scotian culture, human rights and bullying. The second conference introduced 50 culturally diverse students from Halifax to intercultural communication skills, tools for interpreting media reports and ways to examine their biases. Both model conferences brought students into contact with new people and ideas and explored the skills we all need for living harmoniously in a diverse Canada. The students’ positive reactions to the conferences, and their recognition that they need diversity training, coupled with the interest shown by teachers, social organizations and school districts has culminated in the Fellows’ ambition to maintain an electronic list-serv. In this domain, like-minded people would share experiences and contacts in order to organize future conferences and events in schools across the country. “This project channeled our enthusiasm for cultural diversity as a Canadian value into a deliverable that has had a tangible and cascading impact on young Canadians’ lives,” says Richard Hoshino, an Action Canada Fellow involved in the group. “We strongly feel that somehow, we or other Action Canada Fellows in future need to continue our involvement with these groups and see this project through to its larger conclusion.”
