{"id":14798,"date":"2017-10-18T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=14798"},"modified":"2017-10-16T11:41:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T18:41:00","slug":"festival-of-lights-welcomes-cultural-diversity-at-camosun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/10\/18\/festival-of-lights-welcomes-cultural-diversity-at-camosun\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival of lights welcomes cultural diversity at Camosun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diwali\u2014the festival of lights\u2014is one of the biggest events of the year in India, and it\u2019s coming to Camosun College. On Thursday, October 19 from 4 pm to 10 pm at Na\u2019tsa\u2019maht on the Lansdowne campus, there will be both Indian and western music (including a DJ) as part of the Diwali festivities at Camosun.<\/p>\n

Camosun International student experience advisor Audrey Navello says that making sure that all students\u2014domestic and international\u2014feel at home and have fun is the college\u2019s top priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to involve all students,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s an Indian event\u2014it\u2019s really big in India\u2014but we would like other international students to also feel welcome and to come and have a look at what Diwali is and party with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Diwali festival is returning to Camosun this month (photo by Camosun College A\/V Services).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Navello says the celebration also typically involves fireworks, but, for safety reasons, fireworks can\u2019t be part of the party at Camosun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be partying, lots of lights, and people sharing sweets and food and a good time together. We\u2019re just going to start slowly,\u201d says Navello, adding that there will be people there to help explain the event to curious students and passers-by. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a little bit of music, we\u2019re going to try to organize some games, because students are still studying and lots of students want to come from Interurban as well. So we don\u2019t want to start the biggest fun when students are not here yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 5:30, two student musicians will play; there will also be Punjab dancing, known as Bhangra. Navello says at least half of Camosun\u2019s Indian population comes from a Punjabi background, but that this event will be more inclusive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to have dances for all the students,\u201d says Navello, \u201cso, Bollywood for most of the students and Bhangra for the Punjabi students.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the dancing and some appetizers, a DJ will take over, says Navello.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DJ\u2019s going to play some Indian music but also some English songs. It\u2019s a really welcoming event. Last year, we had lots of students from other countries coming as well; I\u2019m not sure if we had that many domestic students, and that would be great if they would feel welcome and got involved,\u201d says Navello. \u201cThe purpose of Diwali is to party, and to share, and to celebrate this event together, but it\u2019s also to allow people from outside, who may not know what Diwali is, to come and discover a little bit more about the Indian culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navello stresses that the event is for every Camosun student and says that everyone can dance how they want and dress how they want.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want all students\u2014domestic, international, Indian, Asian\u2014 from all countries to feel really welcome,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diwali\u2014the festival of lights\u2014is one of the biggest events of the year in India, and it\u2019s coming to Camosun College. On Thursday, October 19 from 4 pm to 10 pm at Na\u2019tsa\u2019maht on the Lansdowne campus, there will be both Indian and western music (including a DJ) as part of the Diwali festivities at Camosun. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-october-18-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14798"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14801,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions\/14801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}