Just World Festival at Annandale HS promotes global awareness

The sixth annual Just World Festival at Annandale High School Feb. 25 offered students from AHS and other schools in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia an opportunity to share their interests in and learn about humanitarian causes, environmental issues, and global and cultural awareness.

“We believe that by learning more about our world, we can truly realize what it means to be a global citizen,” states the program for the festival, which is sponsored by the AHS Just World/Interact Club and supported by the Mid-Atlantic Association of IB World Schools.

The AHS cafeteria was transformed into global marketplace with free trade goods for sale, including jewelry made by Ugandan women out of recycled paper, chocolate from Ghana, and more, and exhibits on such organizations as Students Helping Honduras, PETA, Stand for Conscience (dedicated to stopping Genocide in Darfur), the AHS Green Atoms club, and ActiveWater (aimed at bringing clean water to communities worlwide).

AHS ESOL teacher Joe Mead hosted a display on Children of Mtaya, a school-building project in Zambia. Students from Mountain View High School in Stafford, Va., showed off dresses they made from pillowcases for the Little Dresses for Africa program. Pang Ittisakananth, a 10th grader at AHS displayed handicrafts from Thailand. And members of the Springfield Rotary Club had a display on the ShelterBox program, which provides large tents to areas struck by disaster.

The World Café, catered by the Annandale Bistro, offered jollof rice with chicken, jap chai Korean noodles with beef, pupusas, lumpia, and more. There were workshops on songwriting, the benefits of a vegan lifestyle, and yoga. A scavenger hunt and open mike rounded out the activities.