‘HELLO CAPE BRETON’
Multicultural festival celebrates differences and commonalities of locals and international newcomers
Multicultural festival set for Sunday at Cape Breton University.
Getting the urge to travel and to immerse yourself in new cultures, but can’t afford a roundtrip ticket around the world?
Look no further than Sydney’s waterfront where visitors will soon be checking out a mock Taj Mahal, a scaled-down Egyptian pyramid and replica houses from Africa and China.
It’s all part of the Hello Cape Breton: A World Gathering on an Island multicultural festival that runs from 12-9 p.m. at the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion on Sunday.
The free event also offers a veritable feast of culinary delights from a wide variety of food vendors some featuring ethnic dishes. It also offers nine hours of live entertainment that includes everything from music by Colin Grant and Mike Lelievre to a local drum performance and from Chinese Dragon dancing to belly dancing and Bhangra dancing. There will also be other cultural displays from around the world. Additionally, there will be children’s activities.
The festival’s chief co-ordinator is Ammar Tayeb, a 28-year-old accounting student from Saudi Arabia who opted to remain in the area after completing his studies at Cape Breton University.
Tayeb, who has lived in Sydney since 2012, said the event is aimed at introducing newcomers to the Cape Breton culture as much as it is for local residents
to learn about other cultures from around the world.
“We want to highlight the local community and the local culture so that international students can learn more about the culture here, and we want to the local community to know more about the newcomers,” he said, during a break from festival preparations at
the New Dawn Centre in north end Sydney.
“We don’t look at it like we are two communities, we’re one community — we’re just trying to connect everyone together.”
But the festival strives for more than just bridging the gaps between cultures. It’s also aimed at encouraging international
students to remain in Cape Breton once they have finished their studies.
Festival volunteer Deeno Tuggar came to study at CBU some 10 years ago. The 32-yearold from Nigeria opted to stick around after graduation and is now married with a 19-monthold child who was born at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital.
He works at the Cape Breton Island Centre for Immigration as a retention co-ordinator.
“When I came here 10 years ago there were very few international students — but now this is a time for everybody to come together,” said Tuggar, whose wife is from Egypt.
“There is lots going on here, lots of new businesses here on the island — it’s wrong to think that if you move somewhere else it’s going to be better without at least trying to see what opportunity you might have where you are.”
The local university has seen an explosion in its international student population with out-of-country students now accounting for about half the enrolment at the post-secondary institution. There are about 2,000 foreign students from some 40 different countries enrolled at CBU and more newcomers are expected to arrive for the new term in January.