Vancouver Celebrates Diwali is a South Asian arts & culture festival intended for all cultures and communities. Diwali means “row of lighted lamps”, and its worldwide festivals are a unifying celebration of light over darkness that symbolize the triumph of good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. Celebrated across South Asia, this festival is experienced on a grand scale in almost all regions of India and is looked upon mainly as the beginning of the New Year. People give expression to their happiness by lighting diyas (clay lamps), displaying rangoli (colorful floor mosaics), decorating their houses, bursting firecrackers, partaking in sumptuous feasts, and celebrating with dance, music, and storytelling. For all, it is a time of renewed spirit, celebrated with family and the community through joyous music, dance, crafts, and delectable sweets.
Vancouver Celebrates Diwali’s slogan is “Light Your Spirit”. We are a community-based festival dedicated to bringing together people of all backgrounds. Several events and activities are planned over the course of almost two weeks, bringing back our favorite events from previous years and adding some new and exciting events for this year. Since our first Festival back in 2004, this growing Vancouver event has shown increasing interest from the general public, with over 4,400 people participating in the 2008 festival.
Vancouver Celebrates Diwali operates under the registered non-profit Diwali Celebration Society. The Festival is managed by a tireless group of volunteers from across Vancouver’s professional, service and artistic communities.
Vancouver Celebrates Diwali Steering Committee
Paromita Naidu – Executive Committee Chair
Opreet Kang – Executive Committee Vice-Chair
Parm Johal – Executive Committee Vice-Chair
Hitesh Panchal – Executive Committee
Mo Dhaliwal – Executive Committee
Ashley Avinashi – Marketing Committee Co-chair
Pavan Avinashi
Gurdeep Birdi
Koyali Burman
Suneela Chopra-Kumar – Marketing Committee Co-Chair
Neelamjit Dhillon
Hamita Kang – Fundraising Committee Chair
Poonum Kang
Divya Kohli
Rajpal Kohli
Shilpi Mathur – Production Committee Chair
Danita Noyes
Hoshi Powvalla
Trisha Rampersad
Gurpreet Sian
Raakhi Sinha
Dhruti Trivedi – Programming Committee Chair
Vancouver Celebrates Diwali Staff
Sean Devine – Festival Coordinator
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