Heritage Holiday Program Foundation

Through our Heritage Holiday activity guides, we strive to introduce children to three important components of learning and diversity.

• First, we want to provide children with appreciation and knowledge of the historical traditions and practices of a cultural group.
  In this component, we recognize that to make materials engaging and age-appropriate, we cannot and perhaps should not present everything about a topic or strive for 100% accuracy. Cultural accuracy is a paradox—as the people who define a culture often have different perspectives or experiences and are all constantly changing.
  
  
• Second, we seek to provide children with an awareness of the modern cultural activities and happenings for that same people group.
  The wonder of culture is that it is constantly changing. As a country or group of people change, interact with new influences or struggle through challenges, the things they do, believe or have interest (much of what makes up “culture”) also changes. You will see in the guides our attempts to provide children with some ideas about what children and families today in another culture are doing.
  
  
• Lastly, we are interested in providing children opportunities to consider both the historical and modern experiences of another culture in the context of the children’s culture.
  In other words, we consider how we can help children take what they are learning about another country or people group and translate that to their own cultural experiences. This type of learning involves developing certain social skills such as awareness of others and empathy. It also encourages using some higher-level development skills of moving information from one context to another. We believe it may help all our children build bridges and in the future learn how to dialogue with others who may seem very different.