AWARE presents diversity workshop

By JULIE KEANE, Globe staff reporter
April 8, 2004

Students from Sacred Heart School in Sioux City listened to a workshop presented by the AWARE Leadership Team from Heelan High School on Vietnamese, Indian and Hispanic food, education, life style and language on March 30.

AWARE, All Worthwhile Actions Required Everyone, started its diversity workshop last year with students from Mater Dei School and continued the workshop this year with students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades at Sacred Heart.

"The purpose is to let the middle school kids know that we respect diversity here (Heelan) and we work to further understand ethnic diversity in our student body," Mary Walsh, guidance counselor at Heelan, said.

The students were divided by class for three 20-minute presentation by the Heelan students. Each grade level listened the presenter's talk about their Vietnamese, Indian and Hispanic cultures.

"They will typically talk about language, education, economic status, lifestyle, dress, geography and food," Walsh said.

Sacred Heart students were able to ask the Heelan student questions after the presentation. Students wanted to know about what types of jobs there were for people in the selected countries, what type of government system was in place, what restaurants were available in the different countries, how old students were when they finished school and what types of religions people practice in their countries.

"The India group told us that they have a hundred different Gods," said Brue Watkins, eighth grade student at Sacred Heart. "It was great that even though they have different religions they send their children to Catholic schools."

Megan McClintock, seventh grade student at Sacred Heart, said that one thing she learned during the workshop was cows walked the streets in India and children could obtain their licenses at the age of 13.

"It was really neat to learn about other people's backgrounds, and when we get to Heelan we can go even more into detail about their backgrounds," McClintock said.

Walsh said that Heelan students also benefited from the workshop by discussing their own cultural backgrounds.

"It is great for our Heelan students because they have to present the information and it really authenticates who they are in our school," Walsh said.

The Heelan and Sacred Heart students also participate in a population activity that compared population and availability to food.

"At the end, we did a population activity that compared population distribution in the world and the food distribution in the world," Walsh said. "The largest population segments have the least amount of food distribution."

The workshop concluded with a closing prayer of the Our Father said in Vietnamese and Spanish. Walsh said that the workshop was well received by both Sacred Heart and Heelan students, and the workshop will continue next year when the Heelan students present to students at Holy Cross.

"I hope that they would have a great understanding of their own ethnicity and I hope they would have a greater understanding of the pride that the Heelan students have of the ethnicity," Walsh said. "I hope that they would see Heelan as a welcoming school for people of ethnicity."