College's annual Multicultural Festival scheduled for November 3rd
More than 20 cultures represented through food and performances at HFAC
Marietta, Ohio (10/30/2017) — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 30, 2017
Contact: Tom Perry, Executive Director of Communication & Brand Management, (740) 376-4408
College's annual Multicultural Festival scheduled for November 3rd
More than 20 cultures represented through food and performances at HFAC
MARIETTA, Ohio - More than 20 cultures will be represented through food, performances and robust conversation at this year's Multicultural Festival, being held from 5:00-7:00 p.m., Friday, November 3rd, in the Hermann Fine Arts Center.
Sponsored by PAC, the Office of Education Abroad and the Department of Modern Languages, this year's festival has grown in the number of cultures represented and food on hand compared to last year's celebration.
Attendees will have the chance to try dishes from around the world. Countries being represented through food will include the Philippines, the Congo, India, Venezuela, South Korea and Denmark.
"It's a small thing, but you can learn a lot about a person's culture through food," said Baffour Paapa Nkrumah-Ababio '18 (Sakumono Tema, Ghana).
The food at the festival will serve as a storyteller not just of the different cultures they originated from but also of the local Marietta community. Nkrumah-Ababio said all of the dishes and cultural performances are coming from cultures found within the College and local community and are being prepared by Marietta students, faculty and staff and local community members. In doing so, Nkrumah-Ababio said, the festival can highlight and celebrate local diversity.
In addition to an array of great food, cultural performances, including ones from Kuwait, Ghana, Spain and Native American society, will take place to highlight further and celebrate the diversity of different cultures.
For a more personalized experience, Kuwaiti students will be showing attendees how to write their name in Arabic; West African traditional symbols will be shown and explained, and Chinese calligraphy and henna will be taking place.
Some Marietta students, who have studied abroad will also be in attendance, are excited to talk about their experiences and travels and how others can pursue the same opportunity.
For Nkrumah-Ababio, the festival serves as both a celebration of cultural diversity as well as an exciting opportunity for the Marietta campus community.
"Variety is the spice of life," he said. "We have one life to live, and it'd be a waste to not take advantage of how much diversity we have here in Marietta. I'm just excited for people to have the opportunity to lose themselves in Marietta. It'll be as though you're traveling the world without leaving this one place."
After the success of last year's Multicultural Festival, Nkrumah-Ababio is hopeful to see even more growth in attendance and active engagement at this year's festival.
"My favorite thing last year was that for two hours, non-stop people were talking," he said. "They were talking about things they usually never talk about. They were engaging their differences. For nearly two hours, all you could hear was just noise, but it was the most beautiful sound."
Located in Marietta, Ohio, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, Marietta College is a four-year liberal arts college. Tracing its roots to the Muskingum Academy begun in 1797, the College was officially chartered in 1835. Today Marietta College serves a body of 1,200 full-time students. The College offers 45 majors and has been listed among Barron's Best Buys in College Education and Peterson's Competitive Colleges, and has been recognized as one of the top regional comprehensive colleges by U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review, as well as one of the nation's best by Forbes.com.
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