The Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) Fiji Chapter says religions and religious festivals brings everyone together in Fiji.
Assistant secretary, Chandra Singh, says the significant values and traditional symbolism associated with it are important in a multi –cultural, multi-racial and multi-religious nation such as ours.
Singh says thirty-three-years ago, the government declared a public holiday for Fijians to celebrate Diwali.
He says Diwali involves weeks of preparations and people take great pride in cleaning their homes, surroundings and the entire environment within a community.
Singh says spiritual knowledge is an important part of our life and it creates a great wisdom of understanding and communication that helps to forge goodwill and harmonious relationships with each other.
This festival has a lot of meaning spiritually and also conveys a strong message to overcome difficulties with patience, peacefully, strong will power and full of strength.
