Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ by the Christians. Its a festive season where the Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ by coming together to share food, bible stories and songs with families and loved ones. This celebration has been in existence since time immemorial and it is still being celebrated. This year, the Eastern Mediterranean University celebrated the birth of Christ by organizing a Christmas program for all. The program brought together students from different countries in the spirit of Christmas. It was organized to make the students of the university feel at home away from home. It was also organized to remind them that they are part of the EMU family.
We spoke to the organizer of this year’s EMU Christmas event, Miss Fiona Kafakure, a research assistant at international office. She told us about the preparations. She accedes that “A large population of students that form the international student community are Christians. However, we have decided to put together a Christmas celebration. We made a rough list of the activities we want to do this semester and the Christmas celebration was part of it. We started organizing this event a month ago, postal designs were made, Facebook announcements were floated and we got school sponsorship from the school and some students supported the event. The program is to bring together different people from all around the world to come celebrate, and we hope to achieve this”.
The event took place at Eastern Mediterranean University cultural center on 25th December 2015. The event recorded EMU student attendees from different countries. The program was spectacular this year as there were different performances and activities. The Vice Rector for student affairs, Prof. Dr. Hıfsiye Pulhan gave a speech. In attendance were pastors from different churches and the major activities of the night was from EMU classical choir and special performance from students that included dance and drama.
We spoke with the coordinator of the international office; Mr Ahmed Kasim on this year’s Christmas celebration and he said ” every year we try to improve the standard of the Christmas program, this year Fiona is the organizer of this program, they have all worked very hard and we have supported them fully anyway we can, we organize this program for the student, to enjoy and feel like they are home, we try to give them that feeling they get when they are home. everything here is done for the students”.
We spoke with a Nigerian student, Hope Nancy about the event and she stated that ” Christmas is annual event for Christians, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I have been here for two years now and this year is so different, i actually enjoyed the Christmas and i was excited. Thanks to EMU and the international office for organizing this program, we really enjoyed it.”. A Turkish student Walid Nawaz, also talked about the Christmas and the program organized by school; ” Christmas is like a spiritual belief, and today, we are here together trying to enjoy this day and our beliefs. It was a great idea for the university to plan such event for us to celebrate Christ. I think its a nice thing to do”.
By Deborah Sylvester
