Rockhampton's Ethnic Language Project supporters and participants have gathered to celebrate success in establishing a future for the initiative.

Project spokesperson Rema Dhanasekar said the initiative has been led by a team at Central Queensland University, in conjunction with the Central Queensland Multicultural Association  (CQMA), Rockhampton City Council (RCC) and the Nurturing Migrant Project (NMP).

Language supporters including (front 2 rows from left) Cr Rose Swadling, Dr Susan Yates, Professor Angela Delves and Rema Dhanasekar

The free language classes started in July this year and currently 3  language classes, namely Bengali, Mandarin and Tamil,  have been running free of cost at CQU Rockhampton, with voluntary instructors.  

"Dr Susan Yates and Rema Dhanasekar (CQU team) have created a support system for the community to start any languages. In future this responsibility is to be managed by CQMA, one of the partners of the project.

"The project's success demonstrates that community/ethnic language classes can be set up in any rural or remote part of Australia as long as the community is interested and involved. This project could serve as a model for similar projects in other parts of Australia."

Ms Dhanasekar said it is expected that these language schools may improve communication among family and community members and help keep cultural traditions alive. 

The CQU team's role has been to coordinate this project and provide continuous liaison with Queensland's Languages Other Than English (LOTE) Centre and Ethnic Schools Associations Queensland (ESAQ), at least for the first 6 months.

After 6 months of demonstrated success in maintaining student numbers, these language classes are now moving towards the process which will enable them to be part of the After Hours Ethnic Schooling Program (AHES) and also to receive funding support from LOTE provided that their application is successful.

The celebration is brought to a tuneful conclusion

One of the requirements in the process is that each language classes should be managed by an incorporated association.

The Rockhampton Chinese Association is interested in continuing the Mandarin language class under its management  next year.

The Bengali language class is in the process of finding a suitable arrangement for next year.

The Tamil language class has formed its own association - the Rockhampton Tamil Sangam Inc. - which has started to plan its 2008 activities.  Tamil books and videos were donated to the Rockhampton City Council's library for the community to use and some of the  materials are already catalogued.

Ms Dhanasekar said anyone seeking information regarding the requirements and steps necessary to start any language class at Rockhampton is encouraged to contact Lavenia James (l.james@cqu.edu.au), who is a staff member of CQU as well as one of the management committee members of CQMA.

Dr Susan Yates and Rema Dhanasekar (CQU team) have expressed thanks to all supporters including: students and instructors of the languages; CQU's Deputy Vice-Chancellor; the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean of CQU's Faculty of Science, Engineering and Health; the Director of Community Services-RCC; the Chair of Community Services-RCC; the CQMA and the NMP leaders; the Regional Executive Director-Department of Education and the Arts; the QLD LOTE Centre and the ESAQ and the media.