Diversity celebrated at Indian Mountain School

LAKEVILLE — Indian Mountain School celebrated Diversity Day Monday, April 12, the fifth year of the event.

As in past years, this day consisted of a keynote speaker, a special musical guest, more than 20 different workshop options, a featured movie and an amazing lunch. 

The keynote speaker was Ameen-Storm Abo-Hamzy of Falls Village. An award-winning poet, Abo-Hamzy recited his poetry, talked about diversity, his work and personal experiences living in Beirut, serving in the U.S. Army (he was a paratrooper) and promoting peace through his organization, Evolution Ink.

Students came away from his talk and poetry-writing workshops with a new understanding of diversity and the sameness of all individuals—that our physical makeup is 99.9-percent identical and that our differences represent a scant .1-percent variation.

Two groups from The Hotchkiss School performed:  the Drill team and Calliope, an a capella group.

The entire school went out to the front circle for the installation of the IMS Peace Pole. This pole is inscribed with the phrase, “May Peace Prevail On Earth,� in eight different languages: English, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Latin.

Each student had the opportunity to take three different workshops throughout the day. Some workshop options were: Geography Jeopardy, Chinese Art, Around the World Scavenger Hunt, Rugby, Special Olympics, Origami, Chinese Dumplings, Japanese Culture, Brain Teasers, the Music of Greece and Tibetan Rites.

The day wound up with the featured movie, “The Day After Peace,� about award-winning filmmaker Jeremy Gilley’s 10-year mission to establish an annual Peace Day on Sept. 21.

The camera follows Jeremy as he galvanizes the countries of the world to recognize an official day of cease-fire and nonviolence. As a result of watching this movie, IMS will be recognizing World Peace Day on Sept. 21.

 

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