This year’s Mosaiq Multicultural Festival is officially underway and there are a couple of firsts for organizers this year.
They’ll hold a parade tomorrow, starting at Moncton City Hall. It will make its way down Downing Street to Riverfront Park where the Festival is being held this year, that is also a first.
Spokesperson Justin Ryan says around 30 countries are represented this year. Thousands are expected to attend, many of them who experience something they never have before, “How many kids are coming down, they’re all excited to become a multicultural experience. How many adults are trying new foods that they never would have tried before. The growth is really reflected on how much multiculturalism has really become such an inherent part of the City of Moncton.”
You’ll find a lot of different activities from many different culture, including food, crafts, music and dance.
Ryan say they really put a focus on youth. Fourteen years ago when they held the first festival, they had 20 chairs for the children’s activities, and now they 100, with more needed, “Multiculturalism and other kids from around the world, that’s just their regular day. When you go to a place like Edith Cavell School, over half of the kids at that school were born in another country. Becoming much more par for the younger generation, just of their daily life than we ever imagined for our generations.”
Those who attend the festival come from all over, “It has become this magnet of multiculturalism that people are travelling all of the place. They say the music is fantastic and the crafts are fantastic and the activities are great. They are here solely for that, for the quality of music and the dance and the performances, just in its own right, let alone the multiculturalism aspect.”
The 14th annual Festival runs until Saturday night.
All of the details of the festival can be found at mosaiqmoncton.ca
