PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. (May 27, 2015) -- Sushi, jerk chicken, kielbasa sausage, and tzatziki sauce were a few of the cultural dishes offered May 21 at Picatinny Arsenal's World Day for Cultural Diversity.
World Day for Cultural Diversity is a United Nations sanctioned holiday that focuses on raising awareness about the various cultures around our world. By celebrating and sharing our differences and similarities, the holiday aims to not only build communities but also combat polarization and stereotypes through communication and understanding.
This year's theme, "Do One Thing for Diversity and Inclusion," encourages everyone to take concrete action to support cultural diversity, such as learning about a different religion, studying a new language, playing a sport (like Karate or Pétanque) or cooking traditional dishes.
Picatinny's diversity day was hosted by the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center Diversity Advisory Council (ADAC). This council works to improve diversity awareness at ARDEC by providing sensitivity awareness, mentoring and community outreach.
The countries showcased at this year's event included Greece, South Korea, Puerto Rico, Ireland, France, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the United Kingdom, China, Poland, Germany, India, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Israel, Honduras and Jamaica.
"I was surprised to find out about how much it costs to live in Tokyo," said Dawn Dean, an administrative officer, whose table focused on Japan. "It's so expensive! A one to two bedroom apartment can easily be about $4,000 per month."
With the questions "Where are you from? Where have you been?" as guiding thoughts, each table represented a different country and included photos, PowerPoint presentations, videos or quick facts about the various countries.
Some tables also had samples of traditional foods, offered hands-on activities, such as henna tattoos or reading a Dreidel, while some allowed event participants to try on traditional garb or practice the language.
"For people to work effectively and efficiently, we need to understand each other," said William Smith, director of Fuze and Precision Armament technology. "We need to communicate with different folks and to do that we need to foster an awareness of each other's cultures, and also recognize regional variations."
This is the second year that ADAC has held a World Day for Cultural Diversity. For more information regarding ADAC, or to join the organizational group, contact Cynthia Perazzo (cynthia.l.perazzo.civ@mail.mil ) or visit ADAC's Facebook page.
Related Links:
U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) homepage
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