FESTIVALS- UNITY IN

DIVERSITY
EUMIND VALUES 17GROUP 4 PPS CHANDIVALI

Our journey through EUMIND has been amazing. We learnt a lot from this process. It served as
a training ground for development. Our hypothesis was festivals and celebrations in our
community show respect and tolerance for various cultures and religions. We were successful in
proving it right without a hitch.
On comparing our research work with other schools participating in this program, we came to the
conclusion that though our cultures and religions have only been termed differently, the values
that have been passed on to us are very much the same.

In particular, we compared our research with Vechtdal College Ommen of Europe. They have
presented a very informative article on how they celebrate festivals. Christmas is one of the
common festivals. Due to the large population of christians in Netherlands , their magnitude of
celebration is much more than that of India. The method of celebration and the values are the
same. People go for mass on this auspicious day. Relatives and families come together and share
hearty and warm moments of joy. This gives birth to a very nostalgic feeling in each indiviual.
Christmas trees are decorated and sweets are made at homes. A crib is set depicting the scenerio
of Jesus Christ being born in a manger. Not only the methods but also the stories behind these
celebrations are the same. All festivals promote the same values and teachings.

Religion does not play a very important role in these celebrations as proved in our interviews.
Everybody rejoices in the glory of these celebrations and forget all differences. Their report
proves our statemet right as well:
The Jewish and Islamic celebrations are respected in our society, because some of the Dutch
people go to Jewish and Islamic celebrations and have no criticism on the celebrations. The
Islamic and Jewish people go to the Dutch celebrations too. In short, the Jewish and Islamic
celebrations are respected by the most Dutch people.

These wonderful festivals are fine opportunities to show love to others. They fill our homes with
high spirits, love, kindness and mutual understanding. . If you put a part of your soul, heart and
love into celebrations, no matter which race, religion or country you belong to, you and the
people around will be the happiest in the world. These celebrations help in strengthening the
faith in humanity and harmony in our hearts. They teach us to be grateful of what we have and to
safeguard our happiness. Its also a way to get away from your day to day routine and do
something different, for a change, and exult with our near and dear ones.
Basically, all festivals teach us to be true to ourselves, not be greedy and do good to others.
Never has any festival restricted anybody from being a part of the merriment. Unity in diversity
has been and will continue to be our motto.
Overall in simple terms, universally all festivals are related to harmony, peace and happiness.