25 ways to celebrate Harmony Day

Celebrating Harmony Day on 21 March can be done in any way that suits your library and community – individually, in groups, quietly, loudly, quickly, spontaneously – it’s up to you! All it takes is an idea that you can use to fit your needs. Here is a list of suggested activities that will serve as a good place to begin.

Gather your community to learn more about what Harmony Day means to all of us.

1. Contact all multicultural groups in your community and ask their how they could celebrate in the library


2. Download and enjoy these simple Harmony Day art and craft activities


3. Put an atlas on the wall for all users to pinpoint their origins


4. Host a welcome to your library morning tea – provide or invite them to bring food from their country and show them how the library can become a (larger) part of their life


5. Invite local elders for morning tea and discuss how the library can better support their needs


6. Order LOTE resources from State Library


7. Play music from all over the world for the day


8. Invite your community to provide feedback on how we should be expanding our current LOTE collection


9. Invite guest speaker/s to share their stories


10. Share your favourite Harmony Day moments on social media with instaframes


11. Ask and record your visitors talking about what Harmony Day means to them


12. Host an international scavenger hunt – ask participants to collect items that originate from different parts of the world


13. Display greetings and other simple phrases in languages from all over the world


14. Find ideas on the Public Libraries Connect multicultural resources page


15. Choose a genre and display items from many different countries


16. Investigate how technology can bring people together and break down barriers


17. Put up signs to show where in the world the different parts of your building/ furniture/ plants come from


18. Complete the Chatterbox Challenge


19. Remove one of the barriers – recent feedback from social work students, Moksha Anand and Phuong Lan Do, working with State Library identified a number of barriers to multicultural communities engaging with public libraries, including increasing awareness of services available; building English language competency; and transport


20. Hold a cross-cultural movie night


21. Invite contributions to a multicultural art exhibition


22. Provide classes to learn dances from different parts of the world


23. Post a list of suggested readings related to appreciating diversity or about the diverse communities in your area


24. Promote information about access to international newspapers


25. Make it a cultural dress-up day

Comment below to add your ideas or share what your library will be doing for Harmony Day!