At lunchtime on Tuesday the 21st of October, we had the pleasure to host a fabulous lantern making workshop for Year 7 in celebration of Diwali.

Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, commemorates the triumph of Dharma (good, light and knowledge) over Adharma (evil, darkness and ignorance) when Rama defeated the demon king Ravana with the help of Hanuman and his army. The festival is also associated with the goddess of wealth and prosperity, Lakshmi, and so it is tradition to fill houses and streets with colourful diyas and kandeels (lanterns) to guide the gods Rama and Sita home, inviting prosperity into the house.

As such, there were an array of brilliantly coloured materials – yarns for tassels and handles, a rainbow of card and tissue paper, metallic paints and glitter glue – to fashion lanterns from. After everyone had arrived, Sharvari and Akzhayaa gave a short demonstration of how to construct the basis of the lanterns, rolling one sheet of paper into a cylinder and making slits in the other for the light to shine through, then they were off! The whole room fell into a flurry of activity and excited chatter as everyone worked away at their own lanterns (even the Year 12 prefects joined in), cutting and stapling and decorating to their hearts’ content. It was lovely to witness everyone coming together as one community to celebrate this special day.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who participated, as well as to all those who helped to make this wonderful event possible: Ms Makinde, Ms Regan, the art prefects (Monica, Xuqi and Jesse) and the diversity prefects (Raghavi and Rishitha). We can’t wait until next year!

Written by Vaia T