The Multicultural Youth Society of Chestermere brought the community together through an online Mother’s Day celebration.
“We thought about how the new COVID-19 rules came into effect on Mother’s Day, and it got me thinking what we could do. We wanted to engage people,” said Event Organizer Satish Lal.
He added, “The event was Saturday night, and it was full of energy.”
The online Mother’s Day event included an acknowledgment for the land from Evans Community Leader of Siksika Nation, a message to all mothers from multiple communities in various languages, singing, dancing, and drumming performances, a message from Councillor Ritesh Narayan, and message and performance from MLA Leela Aheer.
“I wanted to promote multiculturism and inclusiveness. I believe this one event is 100 per cent inclusive of every society. Everybody has a mom, everybody should appreciate mothers, the moms need to be celebrated together, and we wanted to have inclusiveness in Chestermere and bring everybody together,” Lal said.
Adding, “This Mother’s Day was a very emotional time, people are more forgiving and loving at this moment.”
The online Mother’s Day event had over 100 community members participate in the online programming.
“It was overwhelming the way it rolled out. The amount of people and involvement it had was amazing,” Lal said.
Lal was inspired to create the online event, as he knew families hoped to get together in person to celebrate Mother’s Day.
“On Mother’s Day people are hoping to get together to some degree, it’s a really hard time. People are having a hard time, there’s a part missing in their life because they are used to going out and visiting, it’s very hard for people to stay at home and not go anywhere,” Lal said.
The Multicultural Youth Society of Chestermere is hopeful the online Mother’s Day celebration took people’s minds off of COVID-19 for the evening, and uplifted them, while giving people an opportunity to spend time together online.
“We’ve never done a Mother’s Day event online, it’s not a big event because everybody wants to keep the boundaries within their family, but when you look at it currently, family is more than your household, everyone is connected somehow,” he said.
Adding, “Your family is extended to some degree, you’re all connected through environment, organizations, and resources, your related to some degree, and if you can extend that and appreciate each other and be together in a peaceful manner. When you get out of the mine and yours and start being inclusive, nobody is a stranger at that point.”
