Kelsey Joseph, who serves as the Associate Director of Intercultural Development at NW, stated in the news release, “The Beloved Festival is a great way to have a culturally immersive experience. Not only can you try wonderful dishes from other countries, but you also have the opportunity to meet students from all over the world and experience a bit of culture”.
This NW event is a collaboration of the Intercultural Club, led by Thea Davis, and the Bridge Center for Intercultural Development. Both of these departments provide resources and opportunities to all NW students. The departments shine in making a connection with people from different cultures, creating a space for international students, and to unite people from every nation, tribe, and language. NW has students from a variety of countries.
One student that is helping to host the event is Mia Kellenberger. When asked why the event matters to her, she said, “it matters because I feel that it is important to celebrate other cultures. As someone who is from a small town in the middle of nowhere, I was never exposed to much diversity, and it sucked”. When asked about what students could learn from the event, she said, “Something we can learn is that other cultures exist, and that we need to celebrate our differences in unity, not uniformity. I believe one thing someone can take from this is that there is a great big world out there just waiting for you to step out of your bubble and explore”.
Liam Nibbelink shared his experiences with the Festival of Culture over his time here as a spectator. Some of his experiences that he highlighted were that he really enjoyed trying all the different foods available as well as spending time with his friends. It was a fun time to see all the entertaining performances from people, and it really opened his eyes to all the things that different cultures have to offer. When asked why he thought the event was important, he specified that especially here in Northwest Iowa, most of the surrounding culture is all the same. So, it is important for people in the area to interact with different levels of diversity, since most of the surrounding community is uniform. Nibbelink expressed that it is amazing that the college can provide the opportunity and experience for students to express the beauty of their cultures. Nibbelink was asked about what we could learn from the event and expressed that diversity of culture should be celebrated all the time, outside of when we have special celebrations for it.
As leader of the I-Club Thea Davis said, “Our differences reflect the beauty of God and it’s so important that we do not turn a blind eye on that. It’s quite easy to pretend we are all the same, but the reality is that we are not – and that’s okay. There is so much beauty to see in our differences.” Davis hopes that this event will allow everyone to see the magnificence of God through all beauty of everyone’s differences and see how we are united in Christ.
