The power of diversity: 2021 Cultural Expressions Festival focuses on diversity

FREDERICTON -

The theme of this year's Cultural Expressions Festival in New Brunswick’s capital, is the power of diversity.

"The festival is a great example of community collaboration, so we are partnering with ethno-culture groups and organizations to organize this event during the pandemic,” said Haruka Kudo with the Multicultural Association of Fredericton. “People from diverse cultures are contributing to this community to make it vibrant and welcoming."

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Fredericton's multiculturalism is growing and they want to show it.

"Fredericton is becoming more diverse so more newcomers are coming and settling here, so we want to highlight and showcase the skills and knowledge that new comers are contributing to this community,” said Kudo.

According to Oksana Tesla who is volunteering at the festival, organizers had to get creative this year with some aspects of the event happening online.

"We created a small presentation about our national costumes. I am sure it will be interesting for you to get to know what's behind it and what's important for our culture,” said Tesla.

For Tesla, she says the online aspect makes it hard to engage with people.

Miguelina Izaguirre, who is from Cuba, held a workshop on Latin American folk art.

"When you see the paint you can see diversity in the paint, you can see different colours, different birds, it's birds but different, small, big, for me, this is diversity," said Izaguirre

The Cultural Expressions Festival will be celebrating Fredericton’s cultural diversity until July 1st.