From prejudices to common pets, Regina students learn each other's cultures

It was a Thursday spent in deep conversations on topics ranging from cultural injustices to pets typically found in their culture as agroup of Regina students representing 16 countries took time to teach each other about their cultures overlunch.

"If we look at our world and all the challenges that we have in our world, so many of these challenges could be eliminated if we just took the time to not only share but listen,"said Kyla Wendell McIntyre, the teacher who organized the event.

The students included those new to Canada, and people who were born here but had various cultural practices at home.The groupgave their thoughts on several topics.

Cultural injustices

Rida Vbaid Khan talked about being a Muslim and gaveher take on cultural injustices. She used the example of the looks she gets when her mother is out shopping wearing a hijab.

"In stores when my mom would open her bag to ... pay and stuff, everyone would lookover and look at my mom, what she's taking out her bag. It's really, really weird and it's crazy."

Animals

Ma'arij Mirza told his group about typical pets in different areas of the world.

"When I used to live in Qatar, most of the people I knew had exotic pets. They used to have pets like cheetahs, tigers, anacondas and such. Otherwise in my culture, people do have normal pets like cats and such but dogs aren't allowed inside the house but they can stay in the backyard."

The unknown

Vidhi Patel shared beliefs that exist in India. This included the belief that you shouldn'tcut your nails or wash your hair on Saturday.

"But I always do it," she said.

Anastasia Kanatsiou moved to Regina two years ago and is now in Grade 12 at Sheldon Williams Collegiate. She was born in Greece but lived most of her life in Albania.

She said she learned a lot from listening to others share their stories.

"Despite that we have different cultures, we are all the same," she said. "We might be different, but we come from the same roots, let's say. And I also learned some peoples not just by their names, but by their stories."