In cooperation with the Shimomeguro 5-chome Neighborhood Association and Meguro Haracho Association in Meguro-Ward, Tokyo, we organized a multi-cultural exchange event. It was a very first attempt for the Neighborhood Association!
The number of foreign residents in Meguro-Ward has been growing.
The Neighborhood Association had been carefully considering connecting local and foreign residents and that they needed to make some effort to raise awareness of multicultural coexistence among local residents.
In the midst of such a situation, we reached an idea to organize a unique event that both parents and children could enjoy. Looking at the event as “the adventure that child-adventurers travel around the world”, participants moved from “country” to “country” while tasting world snacks at the designated booths of a particular nation.
Without a doubt, the purpose of the event was to make an opportunity for locals to communicate directly with foreign residents and deepen mutual understandings, while enjoying the foreign cultures was a success.
More than 50 children came to join us for the event!
Holding their “passport”, the children tasted snacks from each country and tried their hand at quizzes about each country. When they answered all of the quiz questions correctly, they got a stamp for their passport!
Going around the world as an adventurer and the “cultural food tasting trip” let the children “taste” traveling around the world, while deepening their understanding of each country through the quizzes✨
There were booths of seven countries – the U.S., China, Germany, Nepal, Ukraine, Senegal, and Indonesia. The local representative from each country and the Otonari-san volunteer ran the booth and introduced their country.
The care worker from Indonesia who works for “Tokushinkai Kobushien”, the organization which provided the venue for us, ran the booth for Indonesia. He was able to have a conversation with the local people whom he didn’t have many opportunities to communicate with in his daily life otherwise. He also thoroughly introduced the culture and customs of his home country of Indonesia.
The posters introducing each country were created by the foreign residents who ran his/her booth.
All of them looked very unique, reflecting its country’s “flavor” – they were very high quality and were quite popular with the participants🙌
In the middle of the event, the “expedition leader” presented the special quiz questions to everyone in the room and they all got even more excited with the competition.
The parents and children were thinking hard together about the answers to the quizzes regarding how to spend the familiar events like birthdays, Christmas, and New Years in each county.
While some children were cheering with “I got it! Yaaay!” and jumping around, those who did not get the correct answer showed a little frustration on their faces😣
If the answers to the questions were especially unexpected, everyone let out their surprise by saying “ehhhhh~😲”.
Of the surprising questions, the children were particularly surprised with the answer that “an Ogre visits you along with Santa Claus” on Christmas in Germany😲
As the finale of the event, the Ukrainian woman at her booth, whom JII has been supporting, sang a song from her mother country, accompanied by a viola performance🎻 played by an Otonari-san volunteer.
When she started singing, the children sat quietly and listened to her beautiful voice and viola tones♬ They were enraptured😊
“It was an amazing event✨”
“The quizzes were not too difficult and also familiar. It was really interesting that the answers were so unexpected! As his homework from his school, my son wrote his diary about the question that left him the biggest impression😆”
“Children were able to talk to a person whom they only knew the name of the county and gain knowledge that way. On top of that, they could enjoy snacks…😋”
The words above are some of the feedback from the participants – we received a lot of positive comments saying they enjoyed the event so much.
We are very glad to hear they had a really good time🍀
It was very impressive to see the children listening to the managers at each booth with a twinkle in their eyes and taking the quizzes seriously.
We believe that this experience, in which they talked to the foreign residents directly in a familiar place and spent a good time together, has “planted the seed” in their hearts about “how enjoyable cultural coexistence is”💡
The cooperative team from SVP Tokyo, so many people from the Otonari-san volunteers, and the local residents supported us in the preparation and operation of this event. It was indeed through their effort that we were able to achieve such a unique and enjoyable event!
Based on this experience, we will try to create another opportunity by cooperating with neighborhood associations to better practice “cultural coexistence” at the local level!
