Diversity

March 1st is recognised at school as International Zero Discrimination Day.  "Organizations like the United Nations (UN) actively promote the day with various activities to celebrate everyone’s right to live a full life with dignity regardless of age, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, skin color, height, weight, profession, education, and beliefs." Timeanddate.com (here)


Last Saturday, some current and ex-students had organised an afternoon art activities workshop at school for a group of young Syrian refugees. The session kicked off with making wearable name tags to help with bonding, using bothTurkish (Latin alphabet) spelling one side, Arabic on the other.  I wasn't involved - I was attending a day long meeting elsewhere - but I did previously help my student who was organising, with both resources and ideas.  I am very happy, absurdly so, that on Saturday, they made me a name tag too - and today, Zero Discrimination Day, it seemed absolutely right to wear it for a very long list of reasons.


Weather wise, want to mention for the record, that the day, most unusually for Istanbul, started with dense fog and most acceptably finished with warm sunshine and clear blue skies!!