Welland’s ethnocultural community shares its flavours from around the world

To celebrate Canadian Multiculturalism Day and Canada Day with its ethnocultural communities, SOFIFRAN held a community celebration on July 1 at the Welland Farmers Market. A large free buffet was offered to the public, with live music.

Downtown was busy that day, since the city had scheduled its own Canada Day celebrations at the same time along the Welland Canal. Many of those visitors stopped at the market to taste traditional dishes from Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Eritrea, Congo, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Jamaica and Haiti, prepared by 27 women from the region under SOFIFRAN’s coordination.

There was plenty of food, and more than 300 people got to taste the many flavours of Niagara’s ethnocultural communities.

“We were able to offer this banquet of flavours thanks to a project funded by Canadian Heritage for Canadian Multiculturalism Day, which usually takes place on June 27,” explains Fété Ngira-Batware Kimpiobi, executive director of SOFIFRAN. “But since that date clashed with the local Saint-Jean celebration at the Auberge Richelieu, we decided to mark the day at the same time as Canada Day. Our communities came from St. Catharines, Fort Erie and Port Colborne to take part in this event.”

On the music side, the organization brought in Borelson, an artist of African origin whose socially conscious rap is a favourite with younger audiences. A DJ then took over with Arabic and African music, so that every culture represented at the activity would hear something of its own.

“The people who came travelled through the flavours of our communities and saw that immigrants are very much part of Welland’s cultural landscape. Their reaction showed how badly the community needs to live together again, to get back to normal,” Ms. Kimpiobi concludes.

The organization’s next activity will be SOFIFRAN’s mini Olympic Games for children, on August 1 at Chippawa Park in Welland.