By David F. Rooney
An anti-discrimination forum at Okanagan College on Thursday yielded a plan to hold a multicultural festival here in late January or early February.
This was the second of two forums held to discuss racism and discrimination in Revelstoke. Racism exists but was generally not regarded as a major issue in the community. However, more generalized forms of both active and passive discrimination is a problem. Youths, the disabled, people whose English is poor or heavily accented and others who are different, but not necessarily racially distinct, are the victims of discrimination, forum participants decided.
There are things people can do to combat racism and discrimination and exposing people to different cultures’ foods, music and customs is one effective way to do that. As a result, the ad hoc Revelstoke Multicultural Committee plans to hold a festival in late Januaru or early February at the Community Centre. The festival has not yet been named but organizers referred to it several times as a Multicultural Carousel, which is not a bad name for this kind of event.
Most details still need to be hammered out and anyone in the community who is interested in helping out should contact Mary Kline at Okanagan College at 250-837-4235 or by e-mail at Mary Kline MEKline@okanagan.bc.ca.
