When Lynchburg resident Najee Koncept took the stage to rap an original song at Heritage High School’s Culture Night, he had a message of unity.
“We all right here, and if you ever need a call, you can call right here,” Koncept said.
About 50 people gathered at Heritage High School for the Overcoming Adversity with Diversity club’s Culture Night to celebrate about seven different cultures from around the world, including India, Pakistan, Tanzania, China and Mexico.
Overcoming Adversity with Diversity is a club three Heritage High seniors created this school year to bring cultural awareness to the school’s community and help people be proud of their identity.
Bethanie Mickles, a Lynchburg resident and artist director of southern California-based World of Dance Performing Arts Company — which performs international dances — performed a traditional Indian dance.
With food and music, dance, poetry and cultural presentations, people were able to learn about the history, religions, ethnicities and other aspects of different cultures represented within Heritage High School and Lynchburg. Eight people and groups — including students and community members — performed or presented Monday night.
“Stereotypes are formed from ignorance or lack of awareness of other cultures, and I think celebrating diversity while spreading information about those cultures helps eliminate that ignorance,” said senior Manan Shah, one of the founders of the club. “We want people to leave this event learning something new about a culture that they might have known about before.”
Heritage High School custodian Jamila Makullah, who came to the United States from Tanzania a few years ago, created a video explaining Tanzanian culture, like the fact there are 125 tribes within the country that each have a culture of their own. Makullah’s video was conducted in her native language, Swahili.
Heritage history teacher Kim Gafford said the event allowed people to see how students’ cultures contribute to who they are as people.
“I think sometimes, when we get into the high school environment, we forget that all children have a background. We think they’re a typical American teenager, and there’s so many more layers to them,” Gafford said.
Lynchburg resident Monica Oliveros said the event was important because it was a place for people to gather and “learn the outside, not just [the U.S.]”
Oliveros said she loved learning about India and getting a taste of the country’s cuisine.
Meredith Gardner, English as a Second Language teacher at Sandusky and Linkhorne middle schools, gave a presentation on Erte, who is a French artist and designer. She said the event gave “students who are doing their best every day to adapt to a new country an opportunity to spotlight their own culture and to share with us.”
Vicente Gonzalez performed a Spanish song with Juan Ochoa to represent Mexican culture. Gonzalez is a member of the Latin American Community Center of Lynchburg, and he said he hopes Culture Night is a step toward more organizations and different communities within Lynchburg working together to address issues such as bullying and stereotyping.
“I think the message, to me, was the way that so many different communities in Lynchburg are facing similar issues and how we should really be more connected and understand each other, and through that, we can actually address these issues rather than isolating ourselves, which we have a huge problem with,” Gonzalez said.