Dear Visitor ji,
Flowers have started to bloom and spring is officially here. Being Canberra, we still can’t say bye to cold but no more minus temperature. Hopefully soon, Australia will also emerge out of the sombre impacts of COVID-19 restrictions.
As planned, FNACT members elected a new team for the year 2020-21 at the Annual General Meeting on 25 July 2020. I am grateful and humbled by the trust of the members for being elected as President for the 2nd term to provide leadership for the organisation, the Indian Australians and the Indian diaspora in the ACT. Details of the new FINACT team are in the newsletter and also available on the FINACT website.
Despite cancellation of several events due to COVID-19 restrictions, FINACT had a busy year. The FINACT Annual Report 2019-20 provides highlights of some of the activities, events and functions organised and attended by FINACT and by the member organisations.
FINACT welcomes two new organisations to FINACT family: University of Canberra Indian Association (UCIA) and Madhya Pradesh Association of Australia (MPAA). FINACT family has now grown to 29 members.
We have some activities scheduled through the year but they will be subject to the COVID-19 restrictions at that time. Let us hope things get better.
Since its inception, FINACT is providing collective representation and leadership in a responsible and responsive manner for Indian Australians in the Canberra region. FINACT continues to work for culturally respectful community facilities for multicultural needs of ACT communities, support member associations, and be responsive to community issues and concerns. At the same time, FINACT is committed to strengthening productive relationship with all its stakeholders, in particular the ACT government and the High Commission of India. FINACT continues to work for strengthening integration and social cohesiveness, and to operate as a responsible and active community organisation.
FINACT team is your team and feel free to contact any one of us.
Dr Sunita S Dhindsa
President FINACT
Keep Your Dreams Alive
FINACT Team 2020-21
It was heartening to see that despite technological challenges there was good participation from members at the first virtual FINACT AGM on 25 July 2020 and the new Executive Committee for 2020-21 was elected unanimously.
The 2020-21 FINACT Team is given below:
- President: Dr Sunita S Dhindsa (Canberra Punjabi Sports and Cultural Association)
- Vice President: Mr Divi Chittibabu (Indian Australian Association of Health and Well Being)
- Secretary: Mr Ajmal PN (Canberra Malayalee Association)
- Treasurer: Mrs Ragini Santhanam (Mandir School of Music)
- Public Relations Officer: Ravi Krishnamurthy (Australian Tamil Cultural Society of ACT)
- Community Coordinator: Mrs Sejal Kamlesh Kumar Patel (Gujarati Samaj of ACT)
- Cultural Coordinator: Mrs Shahira Shaji (Mehak Punjab Di)
- Women’s Coordinator: Mrs Sahithi Paturi (Navya Andhra Telugu Association)
- Student and Youth Coordinators: Mr Sarwin D’Souza (Indian Students Association) and TBC (University of Canberra Indian Association)
Two other team members are:
- AusIndia Fair Coordinator: Mr Rattesh Gumber (Bihar Jharkhand Sabha of Australia and New Zealand)
- Ex-Officio (most recent past President of FINACT): Dr Krishna Nadimpalli
The new FINACT Team appreciates the opportunity given to them to serve the communities, and to work with FINACT members and stakeholders.
A message from the Returning Officer Mr Dean Sahu Khan:
“Congratulations to each and every one of you for your respective positions. Thank you all for the part each one of you played for the smooth running of the AGM. I was impressed by the behaviour of every participant. Kindly convey my compliments to each and everyone of you. Keep up the good work and may God, the Supreme Being bless you all. Keep safe.”
Upcoming Events
Consultation Workshops - Development of the Southern Memorial Park
A series of consultation workshops will be conducted from 14 September - 16 September at Gungahlin Cemetery.
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Date
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Time
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Location
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Monday 14 September
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6.00pm – 8.00pm
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Gungahlin Cemetery
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Tuesday 15 September
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5.00pm – 7.00pm
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Gungahlin Cemetery
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Wednesday 16 September
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6.00pm – 8.00pm
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Gungahlin Cemetery
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These workshops will be set to discuss, inform and seek input from sections of Canberra’s community in relation to needs and expectations concerning the development of the Southern Memorial Park, a site that will provide for cemeteries and crematoria as well as service Canberra's community for generations to come.
Please feel free to pass along these session times to your community and RSVP to [email protected] by Friday 11 September with a list of names of those who will be attending from your community. Limited numbers are available due to social distancing requirements.
IAMSA's Multicultural Cricket Competition
India Australia Multicultural Sports Association (IAMSA) is organising a Multicultural Cricket Competition from 26/sept/2020. Details are in the poster below.
Congratulations
Tamil and Telugu Languages Approval
In previous years, FINACT had made submissions to Federal Government and National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) for the Accreditation of Community Languages Review.
In 2015, FINACT, with the initiative of Dr Krishna Nadimpalli worked for recognition of Bengali, Malayalam, Telugu and Gujarati languages and made submissions to Senator Concerta Fierrvanti-Wells (Former Minister for Multicultural Affairs), Senator Zed Seselja, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters, and many other decision makers. FINACT delegates also met with Mr Mark Painting, Chief Executive Officer of NAATI in 2019 to pursue the above languages.
As a result, Telugu Language has been recognised as a Credited Community Language (CCL) by National Accreditation Authority of Translators and Interpreters (NAATI). NAATI is seeking application for Telugu CCL tests to be conducted very soon. Those who qualify the CCL will get five points in some categories of permanent residency applications. Prior to that Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Bengali were on the list from the Indian sub-continent languages.
The Chennai Tamil School and Australian Tamil Cultural Society through its work has been able to get Tamil language approved by the ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies (BSSS) as an ATAR subject that can be taught in all colleges.
Past Events & Activities
India's 74th Independence Day - 15 August
The High Commission of India in Canberra celebrated 74th Independence Day of India at its premises in Yarralumla. The celebrations were restricted to much lower numbers due to the COVID-19 restrictions. FINACT and a few other community organisations represented the communities at the celebrations.
Canberra Malayalees Association Celebrates Onam
 Even under Covid restrictions , Canberra celebrated “ONAM”, the harvest and state festival on 29 August in front of the Australian Parliament House with a small gathering and dignitaries, CMA's previous presidents, sponsors and community leaders.
It was a joyous occasion of love, friendship, caring and multiculturalism in our ACT community.
CMA was honoured by the presence and wishes from Mrs Joy Burch (ACT Speaker), Mrs Nicole Loder(Deputy Opposition Leader), Mr Brendon Smith, Mr Jacob Vadakkedathu, Mrs Jane Hiatt and Dr Sunita Dhindsa (FINACT President). Also present were past presidents, Mr Shaji Karrattiyattil, Mr Joby George, Mr Philip Thomson and many others.
CMA welcomed the King “Mahabali” with drums and our beautiful kids dressed in Kerala attire and women dressed in traditional attire performed the traditional “Thiruvathira” dance with great pomp and show.
The program was live streamed to the community through CMA Facebook live.
CMA Badminton Tournament 2020
Canberra Malayalees Association organised CMA Badminton Tournament 2020 on 8th August 2020 following all the relevant COVID-19 norms issued by the Government.
36 teams participated in the tournament in various categories, such as Men's Doubles, Women's Doubles, Mixed Doubles & Teenage Doubles.
It was a very competitive game with many nail-biting finishings and excitements.
All winners were awarded and applauded by the community. Please find photos of winners below:
Your input/event for FINACT newsletter is appreciated and welcome
Newsletter for communities
You will appreciate that newsletters are critical instrument and platform to meet our functional, operational and strategic communication needs. We have been using this infrastructure for long to effectively interact with you.
Funding under the digital grants from the ACT Government has further boosted our capabilities and confidence in meeting our objectives. We thank the ACT Government for their generosity that enables us to extend our tools to our member associations. Please see below for more information on how you can use this feature.
As you know FINACT newsletter is generally published once a month. If our member associations like to publish their organisation's event in the FINACT newsletter, please provide the following information:
- Event name, date, time and venue followed by text
- Text in word format (not PDF)
- Text within 150 words
- One image/picture if needed.
If you have a flyer ready for the event then FINACT can also publish the flyer in the newsletter.
You can submit this information at [email protected] by the last week of month - marked as For FINACT Newsletter.
What else FINACT can do for you?
We acknowlege that not all associations can afford to have mailing lists or tools to regularly interact/communicate with their members. FINACT has tools and capacity to be of your assistance. You may subscribe your members on our subscription page.
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