It is said that the beauty of the world lies in the diversity of its people. By that definition, our country India, must be the most beautiful as we are a country with the most diversity in terms of languages, religions, cultures, traditions etc.

As proud Indians we claim diversity as our strength but many a time intolerance and prejudice taint this sentiment with hatred and violence. We, at St Stanislaus High School decided to foster love and fraternity by adopting, ‘Stanislites together towards harmony’ as the school theme for the year 2019- 20.

Harmony is essential especially in a multicultural nation like ours and our students need to realize how to foster this value in their lives. For this we decided to inculcate harmony by celebrating four different religious festivals i.e. Id- Ul-Adah, Mount Mary Feast, Paryushan and Dussehra which are relatively unknown among the students.

Celebration of Id- Ul-Adah kick-started the harmony festivities with a bang! The Muslim students explained the meaning and reason for this celebration and the difference between the different Id festivals they celebrate. This was followed by a ‘dawat’ of grand proportions in each class arranged by their parents. The next celebration was the Mount Mary Feast where the Christian students explained to the non- Christians the devotion to Mother Mary especially in Bandra through a beautiful video. The students received blessed rosaries and delicious snacks to celebrate Our Lady’s birthday.

The end of September saw the Jain festival of Paryushan being celebrated at St. Stanislaus. Even though there were comparatively few students belonging to the Jain religion, they presented their beliefs and traditions in a meaningful manner that enlightened the other students. The last of the four festivals was Dussehra wherein the Hindu boys brought alive the ‘ Ram Leela’ in the school auditorium, depicting Lord Ram’s life and the destruction of Ravana which symbolizes the victory of good over evil.

The celebration of these festivals was meant to not only explain the significance and traditions associated with them, but to highlight how even in different cultures and religions the message of love and humanity is the same. The objective of this grand exercise spread over the first term and involving all students from grades 1 to 10 was to foster tolerance and promote unity. The positive response and appreciation from the students and parents validated this endeavor. An old Chinese proverb says, ‘A family in harmony will prosper in everything’. We, the Stanislaus parivar certainly plan on exemplifying this proverb through our continued efforts in fostering and maintaining harmony.