A banquet of multiculturalism was served up at Scoil Mhuire in Abbeyleix this June, when members of our SICAP team organised a Share Your Plate event as part of Refugee Week Ireland 2025.
The sports hall of the school was transformed into a festival of culture and cuisine, as bunting spanned the walls festooned with an array of national flags that infused the event with every colour of the rainbow. Several parents prepared dishes from their home countries to share with the students, accompanied by short informal presentations on what life is like in different parts of the world.
Welcoming everyone to the hall, Community Link Worker Susan Stevenson explained that the purpose of Refugee Week is to celebrate the mix of different cultures and nationalities that contribute so much to local communities.
“We hope that everybody here learns something new today, as you all take the time to listen to everybody who will talk about the delicious food that they have brought here. Hopefully, we’ll all learn something new and have a little bit of fun along the way,” said Susan.
Next to address the crowd was Oksana Bereza, originally from Ukraine, who is the New Arrivals Support Worker with Laois Partnership Company, working with refugees and new arrivals to Laois on all manner of community development projects.
“We decided to come to this school because we know that there are so many intelligent children here, and we wanted to bring some information about other countries,” said Oksana.
She asked the children how many of them came from countries other than Ireland, which prompted a show of hands and a range of answers that included Romania, Zimbabwe, England, Botswana, Nigeria, Guatemala, and her native Ukraine.
The children were treated to an audiovisual presentation that highlighted cultural aspects of many of the countries represented, with displays of music, dance, traditional dress, and customs and practices that make each country so unique. Samples of the delicious food were then distributed to the children at the end of the presentation, which created a global menu of dishes to make the taste buds tingle.
From Ukraine, there were shortbread bagels with raspberry jam; pancakes with apple and cinnamon; and verguny on kefir, which is a fried pastry dish.
From South African there was papa, which is a type of porridge or polenta made from mielie-meal; chakalaka, a traditional vegetable relish; and samp and beans.
From Moldova, there was plăcintă pie, while the children also got to tuck into warak enab, which is a dish of grape leaves stuffed with rice, beef, spices and herbs that is popular across the Levant – Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan – Egypt, Turkey (where it’s called yaprak sarma), and Greece (where it’s known as dolmades).
In all, it was a wonderful way to mark Refugee Week, which is the world’s largest arts and culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.
