World Carnival To Be Hosted This Month

The Sunnyside Unified School District announced Friday the rebirth of their World Carnival idea to be hosted March 26 at Desert View High School. This decision comes a year after the 2009 carnival was cancelled due to a general lack of participation. 

This year’s carnival will feature schools and clubs from all of the Sunnyside district as they host booths with themes from Israel/Palestine, Samoa, Honduras, Holland, and Australia, among others.  The idea arose last year among members of the SUSD student committee but plans fell through when not enough support could be garnered.  It might be interesting to note that one portion of the distroct’s Digital Advantage program that awards free laptops to outstanding students includes a portion that says they must be active in the community.  I imagine that this event earned at least a couple more supportors due to this.

Students will host the booths which will have an assortment of culturally related activities to partake in as well at food from all the respresented countries.  The aim of the event is to “bring school, families and the community” together according to the release by the district.

One interesting feature of this year’s event will be the Israel/Palenstine Peace Booth hosted by students from the STAR Academic Center.  Students have spent the past several months studying conflict in the Middle East, including visits to The University of Arizona Department of Middle Eastern Studies to gain a new respect for not just the struggles of foreign countries but in their own neighborhoods.  The booth will hope to show people the parallels of these conflicts in addition to helping people in the community that we have more in common than we do differences.  It’s some really mature stuff for the students in the district to be covering and something I’m not entirely sure they could have acheived over the past couple years as the school’s struggled just keeping kids in class, let alone learning about such intense subject matter.

Events will kick off next Friday at 5 p.m. and continue through 9 p.m.  Admission is free and open to the public.