Racial Harmony Day

Edited from http://www.limguohong.com/2007/07/21/youth-and-racial-harmony-day-carnival/

Montfort Secondary School had its Youth and Racial Harmony Day Carnival on the 20th July 2007. This has almost become like a tradition. Different classes have to come up with different ideas to raise funds.

For almost a whole week, the school had been saying the National Pledge in the four official languages - Tamil, English, Malay, Mandarin. The morning of Racial Harmony day began with a pledge in English. Then in a rather unusual and meaningful fashion, it was followed by the racial harmony creed.

WE, the people in Singapore, declare that religious harmony is vital for peace, progress and prosperity in our multi-racial and multi-religious Nation. We resolve to strengthen religious harmony through mutual tolerance, confidence, respect and understanding. We shall always
Recognise the secular nature of our State,
Promote cohesion within our society,
Respect each other's freedom of religion,
Grow our common space while respecting our diversity,
Foster inter-religious communications,
and thereby ensure that religion will not be abused to create conflict and disharmony in Singapore.

After assembling in the hall after flag-raising, the day bgan with a meaningful prayer by the school's Ecumenical Council / Inter-Religious Organization.

Mr Perumal, Mr Chia Yong Koon, Mr Tan Geok Hean, Mr Azman, Mr Lloyd Yeo all prayed in racial harmony and asked blessings in their own way for all our Montfortians.

Their prayer was adapted prayer from the IRO of Singapore - www.iro.org.sg/website/invocation.html. Their invocation is prayer is said whenever the IRO meets.

Later we were shown 2 videos of Montfort Homestay Project, these were competitions organized by the Northeast CDC. (We managed to achieved a Consolation Prize)

At the end of that presentation, people in their ethinic costume were up on stage for a fashion show. A short introduction were done on the different types of ethnic costumes and later they did a cat-walk to see who was best-dressed for the day.

Rohith (4E2) won. We later celebrated the day by participating in the carnival which lasted till 12pm. More than $3000 were raised. The money goes to the School Pocket Money Fund which helps needy students.