Harmony Week at UHS
Harmony Week was very successful at Urbana High School this year. The event took place the week after UHS students returned from spring break. It began on Tuesday and ended Friday.
“Harmony week is a week-long program sponsored by the UHS student senate program,” said Senior and Senate Coordinator of Harmony Week, Mandy Facer. “One hundred students come together to learn how to be tolerant of one another and positively contribute to our community.”
Student Senate has been busily preparing Harmony Week for the last few months and has worked hard to making sure the week went on without a hitch. “It was better than last year. Mandy put a lot of work into it and it all paid off,” said Senior Group Leader Morgan Copper.
“I decided to do Harmony Week because I like to spend time with positive people and talk about issues that are important,” said Senior CiCi Stewart.
Tuesday was the first day of the event. Students were divided up into about ten groups that had two group leaders who were members of the Student Senate. The groups were very diverse and many students met people that they had never met before. “I liked getting to know everybody,” said Freshmen Amber Marion.
The groups played various icebreaker games. Then Emily Warren and some other members of Ellen Dahlke’s English class presented a PowerPoint presentation about rape.
The following day, students met during seventh and eighth hour to listen to Dr. Laura Taylor and Travis Courson talk about bullying, harassment, cyber bulling, etc. Then special education teacher, Cristina Godoy talked about disability awareness. She provided UHS students with activities that stimulated what it would be like to have dyslexia and autism.
On Thursday, Jason Epperson spoke about his humanitarian work and talked about the different countries he has been to and why it is important to help people.
“I felt like the students got a lot out of it [Harmony Week] and are excited to go and change the world and community after Jason’s talk about being a humanitarian,” said Cooper.
Master Hwong was also scheduled to come and teach the students Taekwondo, but did not make it to the presentation. His two freshmen assistances Chang-hee Lee and Niknaz Iranmanesh did an excellent job of taking over the students and teaching them Taekwondo. “That was difficult. However, through the efforts of the students, group leaders and Senora Alvarez, we were able to recover and still have a good time,” said Facer.
On Friday, the final day of Harmony Week, students gathered during fifth and sixth hour in the Auditorium and created encouraging posters that will be hung in the hallways and enjoyed a celebration lunch.
It can be confirmed without a doubt that this year’s Harmony Week was great. The hard work done by the senators and Student Senate advisor, Yvonne Alvarez-Cortes was definitely worth it.
“This is my second year hosting the event and I feel this year went even better than the last,” said Facer. “I’m grateful for the lessons Harmony Week teaches everyone, and I know I learned a few things myself.”
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