African fashion on show

Fashion took centre stage on Friday as students, teachers, and parents of the West Terrace Primary School held their annual African Awareness Dress Day and Pageant celebrations.

Themed Africa: One Continent, Many Cultures, the pageant featured pupils dressed head to toe in genuine African garb.

Ariel Patrick, teacher and head of the African Awareness Committee, explained: “We know that Africa is a diverse continent. Yes, our heritage and ancestry is from West Africa but we wanted to expose the students to the other cultures and other religions and people of the continent. So we would have allowed the students, each age group, to select countries from the four different cardinal points.”

Reception students represented Tunisia, Infants A pupils depicted Zimbabweans, Class 1 students were assigned Senegal, Class 2s represented Madagascar, Class 3 pupils dressed like Kenyans, and Class 4 students represented Ethiopia.

Patrick added: “They would have chosen their countries last month and they would have had weekly practice to [fine tune] their talent as well as come up with their dress because the dress and talent had to represent the country.

“The parents were very supportive…. The support has been very good. We [also] invited the parents today to come and watch.”

At the end of the festivities, the Zimbabwean duo of Shakyla Wards and Dantae Yearwood copped first place in the pageant.