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Mexico is famous for …. Tacos! What else?
The country of sun (just like Japan), Mexico is a crossroads between North American and Latin American cultures.
This day is the “Day of the Dead (Día de los muertos)”*. It was depicted in a gorgeous way in the movie “Coco”. To promote global diversity in a experimental way, we – Global Learning Center 3L-Miel – conducted “5 sense event” featuring Mexico 🇲🇽, where participants can experience the diverse charms of the day with all five senses, including colorful decorations, cheerful music and festivals, delicious food and games, and even ancient civilizations.
*For more information about the Day of the Dead, please refer to our previous blog post
“Feel Life and Death through Mexico’s Día de los Muertos Art! A Celebration of diversity and Creativity in English”
Implementation of the event
- Icebreaker (as usual, we put special emphasis on icebreaker to have friendly and safe environment, connect participants with facilitator through world greeting)
- Relationship building among participants (each participant paired up and got to know about the other partner through theme-specific question: “What is the memory of the person you want to come back?”
- Pre-test (How much do you know about the world and the countries, and how familiar do you feel with them?)
- Introduction to Global Learning Center 3L – MIEL and two stories
- Five-sense stretching (which can be useful to be mindful, reduce stress and access to your own 5 senses)
- Introduction to the countries (in a quiz format) and experiential activities (touching, smelling the ingredients of local foods, and participating in meal prep)
- Presentation of world food, drinks, and desserts
- Introducing videos, stories, performances (music and dance) from the countries
- Connecting online with locals
- Local games
- Reflection of the day
- Post-test (same as the pre-test)
- Post-event questionnaire
Below are some of the photos to illustrate the event:
<Interaction among participants (introducing the partner)>
I picked my grandma, who used to operate design school in the same venue as our global learning center.
<Safe and joyful environment to feel and learn the country>
<Basic information about Mexico (quiz)>
Mexican people work hard. And one Mexican changed my life.
<Today’s menu>
<Connecting with local guest>
<Let’s enjoy local play: Piñata>
Silence after the excitement is always remarkable
<Pre🔴/Post🟢 test>
Not only did we have fun, there was also small evidence about learning (last question shows that people felt closer after the event (green) compared to the beginning (red) after a 2-hour long event.
<Please rate your opinion about the following statements (1=not at all, 5=very much)>
1. You are interested in diverse world and cultures
2. You have knowledge about the global matters
3. You feel related to the global matters
4. You have knowledge about Mexico
5. You feel close to Mexico (<– this is the main objective of the event, which shows great results as shown in the above photo)
Participant Learning
From the above, I hope you can see that this event was jam-packed with content involving the five senses. Below are some voices from the post-survey:
🌍I learned the joy of learning, as well as historical aspect in such a short time!
🌍The foods were all great especially when these are something I cannot usually access to.
🌍Connection with the local guest was something very unique to 3L!
🌍I like the 3L passport initiative, since the passport stamp / sticker will remind me of today’s event.
In addition to these comments, all participants answered they learned something.
Key Learning from This EventーWrap up
The 7th event taught us many things, confirming that the best way to learn is by trying. Día de los muertos also taught us the importance of thinking about the death to live fully.
By making the world and ourselves more visible (“MIEL”), we aim to promote diversity and wide-ranging learning. Though it may be a long journey, I hope we can walk it together with many people.
Thank you for reading this article. Have a great learning!
MD