Celebrations of different cultures can raise particular safety issues, but these should cause no great problem if proper risk assessments are conducted.
The fact that activities relating to different cultures can be new to staff and children is a potential difficulty. Over-familiarity with situations can encourage inattention to dangers they entail. However, unfamiliarity is a much greater problem. (The greatest number of accidents in schools occur in the first weeks of the school year.) Lighted candles, swords, sticks, fireworks, open water, unusual foods prepared in frying pans on oven hobs: all these feature in the festivals of various cultures. Some symbols, such as the lighted candle, have such obvious resonance that they occur frequently. Such things can cause alarm in the minds of staff or parents. The risks are certainly there, but measures can always be taken to bring them within acceptable limits.
Some aspects of a festival can be avoided altogether, or some safer substitute for the real thing (such as paper imitation fireworks) can be adopted. If steps like these seem necessary to reassure staff and parents, this may be the best option. It is often unnecessary to go that far. It may be possible to bring people into the setting from particular communities who are used to introducing their own children to festival activities and can help the staff to do so. The planning of activities around a particular festival should include allowance for the time it will take children to learn how to handle any risks attached. Above all, the fact that the activity may be unfamiliar will make a full risk assessment necessary and this in itself may help staff re-think the whole business of safety, which is always in danger of becoming a routine application of procedures.
