Peace One Day took place Sept. 21 at 6 p.m. in the Campus West Dining Hall. Its slogan was “Celebrating peace, diversity, and coexistence at NYUAD.” The cultural fair hosted an open mic and a food festival. Many of the Cultural Student Interest Groups on campus participated, including the UAE Club, Latinoamérica, Africa Global, ASEAN, and the Ukrainian SIG. The food festival consisted of a variety of dishes from Ethiopian, Egyptian, Latin American and Italian cuisine.

Peace One Day is a global movement adopted by the United Nations, celebrates an international peace day annually on Sept. 21. At NYU Abu Dhabi, the event was hosted by Daniel Rey, Class of 2020.

“For the cultural fair, we worked with the idea of ‘cultural micro-experience’, short two minutes interactions for people to learn about a culture different from theirs … it helps us rethink how peace starts at the individual, micro, person to person level and that from there we can move on to solving conflicts at large,” said Rey.

On Sept. 21, classes were cancelled due to the Hijri New Year. The UAE follows the traditional Islamic Calendar, in which the year is shorter, meaning that holidays do not fall on the same dates every year in the Gregorian calendar. Next year, the Hijri New Year falls 11 days earlier than this year.

The holiday celebrates the migration of Prophet Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, 1439 years ago.

Many students made plans to visit the neighbouring Emirates over the three day weekend. . Wednesday night the Campus East Dining Hall was empty due to the students who left campus.

On March 7, 2007 the Louvre Paris announced that a new Louvre museum would be constructed in Abu Dhabi. The museum was originally expected to open in 2012. However, the opening was delayed several times due to construction issues. The Louvre Abu Dhabi announced the official opening date to be Nov. 11 this year.

The building, designed by architect Jean Nouvel, is located on Saadiyat Island. NYUAD’s Sufara’s Program will organize a trip to The Louvre museum. The program plans events around the UAE for students to engage in cultural immersions. On the NYUAD Student Portal, a Google Form is now live for students to indicate their interest in attending.

Many students have been anticipating the opening.

“It’s really important because the UAE is trying to establish itself as a global leader, by having some of the big cultural sites open up in the Middle East,” said Hanh Nguyen, Class of 2020.