Students then assembled kites using recyclable sticks and paper, decorated them with their own designs. On the kite some students wrote that millions of refugees were suffering to remind people not to ignore the plight of this group. They also added text, often with words such as hope and peace. The students first made their own graphic designs on paper, some with symbols of peace, others with their favourite cartoons to send their wishes to the refugees. To raise awareness of this story, the students designed and made their own kites using sustainable materials and on the morning of 12 October flew them on the big field. Over the course of the unit our Year 6 students learnt how a common activity in their daily lives - flying a kite - has a profound meaning to the people of Afghanistan. However, during the Taliban rule from 1996-2001, this widespread hobby was taken away and kite flying became a banned activity. Kite culture can be seen all over the streets of the capital, Kabul when the skies are filled with colourful kites soaring in the wind. Kite flying is a custom in Afghanistan, and every year in early spring there is a huge kite festival where many children will exert their year-long strength to try and make their kite the best. Through their recent study of migrants and the refugee crisis in Humanities, Year 6 students came to understand the reality of what people in these situations face. In Kabul, fighting kites was a little like going to war.” (Hosseini, The Kite Runner, P.43) I felt like a soldier trying to sleep in the trenches the night before a major battle. After the Taliban government fell, the ban against kite fighting went away, but still, not everyone can compete in a kite fight. I’d roll from side to side, make shadow animals on the wall, even sit on the balcony in the dark, a blanket wrapped around me. What happened to kite fighting when the Taliban came In 1996, the Taliban government in Afghanistan banned kite fighting and kite flying and declared it un-Islamic (Kite Flying). I never slept the night before the tournament. If you were a boy living in Kabul, the day of the tournament was undeniably the highlight of the cold season. "Every winter, districts in Kabul held a kite-fighting tournament. There is no word on when, or if, a compromise will be reached.To understand the backstory you have to go back to the best selling book, The Kite Runner: Lee met with Parks and Recreation officials Tuesday to discuss a solution to the controversy. They say one solution is to assign a designated kite-flying area in every park. Some kite-fighting groups have moved to a downtown park since the ban in Milliken Park. While kite fighters insisted they cleaned up after themselves, a CTV News camera found bunches of sharp string around the park on Tuesday, despite the two-week-old ban. The ban was enacted administratively, meaning without the approval of city council, after local residents complained the park was littered with the sharp, severed strings after kite fighters packed up and went home. The city banned all kites from Milliken Park, a 32-hectare green space in the city's northeast end that had become a favourite site for kite-fighting competitions popular with Toronto's large Afghan community.Įvery weekend, dozens of families, many of Afghan heritage, gathered at the park to picnic and watch skilled kite-fliers engage in aerial battles to slice their opponents' strings. "What happened in Milliken Park is that it became the magnet that attracted all the kite fighters and they left all the dangerous strings around," Lee told CTV Toronto. Lee said the ban, which angered many in the local Afghan-Canadian community who poured into the park every weekend to engage in kite fighting, is about preventing injuries to local residents. Chin Lee, who spearheaded the ban on kites in Milliken Park that took effect two weeks ago, said the string, which is often laced with metal or glass, is widely available at most dollar stores across the city. A Scarborough councillor who spearheaded a ban on kites in a northeast Toronto park is calling on officials to vote this fall to ban the dangerous string used by kite fighters at every park in the city.Ĭoun.
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