Barnsley College Celebrates Equality and Diversity

Barnsley College recently held an equality and diversity celebration day with events going on across a number of College sites. The main activities took place at the Old Mill Lane site and the celebration day was opened by a Chinese Lion who performed a ‘blessing’ to welcome everyone to the event. The lion, manned by the Sheffield Chinese Lion Dance Team wowed the audience as he danced down the corridors before officially blessing the event.

College staff had also been encouraged to hold events, with many departments running stalls to raise awareness of equality and diversity throughout the College. With over 1000 staff and students attending the event, there was certainly something for  everyone. A number of different styles of dance were performed including break dance, African dance, Bollywood dance and belly dance. The dance routines encouraged audience participation and many students got a taste of the varying styles.

The Falcon Centre made use of their giant screen to run a world cinema day with short films from around the world being shown all day. The sport department also got involved, running a junior Olympics competition at the Honeywell site. One of the more popular stalls on the day was the food tasting stands put on by the Catering and ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) departments. A variety of food from across the world was on offer for students and staff to taste with members of the local community getting involved to show off the national dishes from their respective countries. Food included Chinese, Thai, German, French, Indian, Spanish and many more and gave people a taste of the delightful cuisine on offer in these diverse countries.

Popular stalls included a henna hand painting stand where people could get some amazing artwork painted onto their skin. Global Exchange also had a popular stand with art work on display as well as African dance. They certainly rose to the challenge in the limbo competition as people were challenged to see ‘how low could they go’. There was also the opportunity to try on a suit that replicated what it felt like to have limited mobility and eyesight, like an old person may have. Students could not believe how difficult everyday tasks became such as sitting down or threading a needle.


The event was a huge success and helped to raise the awareness about equality and diversity within the College.