School day with a Nordic flavor
The Embassy of Finland participated in the Nordic Passport Day held at the American International School of Zagreb on 3 December, 2013. The aim of the day was to provide a glance into the societies and cultures of the five Nordic countries Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland for the students, as well as the teachers at the school.
AISZ(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) is one of the four international schools in Zagreb in addition to the British, French and German ones. The school was founded in 1966 and it currently has 258 students representing 35 nationalities all the way from junior kindergarten to high school. Passport Day is a long-standing tradition at the school and it is held twice every semester. Its purpose is to give the pupils an introduction to a certain country or region.
The Nordic Day consisted of a general video presentation of the five countries’ beautiful nature, culture and technological innovations such as Skype, Minecraft and Angry Birds. There was also a Pippi Longstocking play by the School Drama Class, a visit from Santa Claus for the younger pupils, and a presentation of the Nordic countries’ societies by the Embassy’s Deputy Head of Mission Ville Andersson for the older ones. Moreover, there were different stations where the kids could, for example, do Nordic themed arts and crafts, get to know literature, taste Nordic pastry, and try a popular children’s birthday party activity – fish pond.
One of the most popular stations during the day turned out to be the sports corner, with screams of joy and performances of "joga bonito" by the children, as the students had the chance to try floorball, still quite unknown in Croatia but a very popular game in Finland and Sweden. Its popularity is based on the fact that it is a quite simple game, suitable for almost everyone and the players are not required to have a huge collection of different sporting gear – a stick and a ball, and you have a game. In order to make the floorball presentation possible, the Embassy received a donation from the Finnish company Fat Pipe.(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)
All in all, the successful Nordic day was made possible by the countless working hours by three devoted Nordic women - a masterpiece example of Nordic co-operation in itself. The kids learned the commonalities and diversities in the five countries and more importantly there were a lot of young, happy faces.