Festival a day of play
Enga ging children and their families in activities from around the world is a great way to break down barriers and expose them to different cultures. Global Citizen Kelowna’s Joyce Brinkerhoff
Chinese lantern making, First Nations storytelling and Japanese origami folding were some of the many cultural activities featured at the Lake Country Children’s Festival on Saturday.
Families from around Kelowna and Lake Country filled the Lake Country Community Complex to participate in the various free activities.
“We’re here serving the community of Lake Country and the region by providing a family-friendly, barrier-free activity,” said Ryan Donn, cultural development co-ordinator for the District of Lake Country.
“In Lake Country, they’ve had 5,000 people move here in the last five years, and most of them have been young families. We just realized there’s a really big need to serve the families of Lake Country, and that is what this event tries to do.”
Last year’s festival attracted 1,500 people and this year, Donn expected around 2,000 people to attend.
“We’ve basically grown it like crazy,” he said of the festival. “We’ve got 40 activities and we’ve got a brand new bouncy castle city.”
Along with activities such as Lego building, balloon animal making, dress-up booths and face painting, there was a global children’s village area, featuring activities from 18 different nationality groups.
“We wanted to show how diverse Canada is, even in the Okanagan,” said Joyce Brinkerhoff, of Global Citizen Kelowna.
“Everyone is invited to travel the world through games, crafts and activities in the global children’s village.”
This year’s global children’s village was a big expansion over last year’s, which only featured a few cultural activities, including turban tying.
Engaging children and their families in activities from around the world is a great way to break down barriers and expose them to different cultures, said Brinkerhoff.
“A lot of the times there is fear of the unknown,” she said. “I think we have a great opportunity in the Okanagan to welcome people.”