We have a very special celebration coming up on Thursday, 26th February. Community National Schools are multidenominational schools where children of all beliefs, both religious and non-religious are celebrated. For some people, this part of their identity is extremely important. As it is Human Rights Month, we are looking in First Class in particular Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 states the following:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
To bring this human right to life in the school, we are developing a belief artefacts display for our school foyer at the moment. Our parents and children informed us of what they would like to see in this display that would represent their belief tradition. We will be putting up the display boxes next week and then during the ceremony on the 26th, parents of the various belief traditions will put their special artefact into the various boxes. Parents who have volunteered to do this will speak a little about their artefact/belief tradition and why it is important to them. The children from Mr. Kinsella’s, Ms. Looney’s and Ms. Harney’s classes will sing some songs also during the ceremony.
We are very excited about this event as even though it will be very simple, I think it will really show all who come into the school our commitment to the celebration of diversity
