Penn State Behrend brings together its diverse collection of students to celebrate its 31st Annual Harambee Dinner Thursday, Oct. 5, in McGarvey Commons.

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The Multicultural Council hosted the event, which focuses on the term, “Harambee,” which means, “to pull together,” in Swahili. The term originated in Kenya, representing national unity.

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Every year, the Harambee Dinner is dedicated to uniting the campus community and representing its vast array of cultures and diversity among students, faculty, and staff.

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This year featured guest speaker, Darryl Bellamy, national speaker and author of “Fearless Leadership - Reframing Your Fears to Lead and Live Out-Front.” Bellamy discussed his book and focused on facing your deepest fears and tackling them to push forward.

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Bellamy encouraged interaction amongst students as he asked them to do a few exercises with one another. He also asked students to write their biggest fear on a piece of paper and place it in the box on stage. Bellamy read the fears aloud and motivated students to conquer these fears together.

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For the past two years, Bellamy has traveled to many different schools to give speeches dedicated to students standing up to their fears.

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“At this point I have collected over 4,000 fears from students all over the country,” Bellamy said. “Not only is this a great event for different cultures and diversity, but I feel like a lot of times, when it comes to diversity, we don’t push through those fears and push through those feelings to stand up for what we believe in.”

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With the unfortunate tragedies that have struck our nation as of recent, Bellamy felt this event was vital in bringing students together from all cultural backgrounds to motivate one another and conquer any fear that is restricting them from moving onward.

“With everything that’s going on in the world, I just want them to leave this event knowing that no matter what they’re going through, whether it's cultural, or on campus, or in life, they can push through fear and they’re not alone in their journey,” Bellamy said.

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President of Multicultural Council, Marisela Poblete, feels that the event begins the year on a “positive note,” and allows students and members under the MCC to meet one another and celebrate the meaning of diversity.

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“I feel it's very important to bring Harambee to Behrend every year to bring in the new year,” Problete said. “With everything going on in the world, I really think it's important to stick together and support each other and to show the students that there are people who care.”

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The annual event brought back several students from previous years, including second semester freshman and political science major, Carlos Mora.

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The event is a new way to communicate with classmates and encourage cultural exchange, said Mora.

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Mora continued to explain how the event takes a large diverse group of people and unites them as one.

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“At my table, there are people from Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, Venezuela, San Carlos, and Columbia, which is where I am from,” said Mora. “You have all these people from around the world having a dinner together and I think it’s great.”

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The event wrapped up with a musical dance performance by the St. Haralambos Hellenic Dancers, authentic greek performers.

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The MCC encourages students to join over a dozen of cultural associations on campus which dedicate their efforts to promoting awareness to historically underrepresented groups. Harambee is an event which represents these diverse group of individuals as a whole, and advocates cultural acceptance and appreciation amongst the campus community.