When Richmondite Soheyl Mottahedeh first knocked on his neighbor’s door to share thoughts about the beauty of diversity and unity, he didn’t know what to expect.
Now Mottahedeh and his wife Susan are co-hosts of a weekly virtual zoom meeting on Thursdays 7 p.m. to celebrate the diversity of the Richmond community and promote understanding.
“Our heart was broken about George Floyd’s death and we realized that it’s a reflection of so much injustice in the world,” said Susan, adding that the tragedy triggered them to be part of the solution.
As a clean-tech innovator who spent almost 25 years working on renewable energy projects and empowering hundreds of communities in rural Africa and Asia, Mottahedeh believes human beings are connected.
“It’s like when one part of the body suffers, then the whole body aches. The suffering is upon us all; it’s not about people of colour,” said Mottahedeh.
Harbouring the desire to promote unity, Mottahedeh said it took some courage to knock on people’s doors in his neighbourhood. Then he met another family from Ghana, which is located in the sub-region of West Africa.
“I told my neighbour ‘thank you for your contribution to our community’...and that I was not aware of my privilege until looking at the history of black people and their contribution to North America,” said Mottahedeh.
The neighbours immediately connected and the idea of throwing a weekly zoom party was born.
The meetings were a success and have become a storytelling hub for people from different cultural backgrounds to share their journeys.
In fact, Mottahedeh and his wife said the meetings have helped them feel not just more connected to their neighbours, but to everyone on earth -- no matter their native language.
In one of the meetings, the family from Ghana talked about how in their culture, children are usually given a “day name” which corresponds to the day of the week they were born. Children born on the same day will gather together and be friends with each other, explained Susan.
Inspired by the “day name” story, Susan said she was thinking about organizing a neighbourhood block party to figure out which day everyone was born. However, they had to hold on to the idea for now due to COVID-19.
But the good thing is the weekly Zoom meeting will continue.
“We learn from each other and recognize we are one human family. The world is beautiful because of diversity, just like different colours and shapes of flowers in our garden. We should enjoy the beauty of differences,” said Susan.
