– The Voice of America interviewed the Director Mr. Anwar Akash (Bangla language version)

– The Radio 2ser interviewed the Director Mr. Anwar Akash

Australia is a melting pot of cultures and languages, and tragically many of the languages that were spoken in this country have been lost along with the first peoples who spoke it. Some of our newer arrivals, however, also struggle to maintain that connection to their mother tongue and their homes. International Mother Language Day gives us a perfect opportunity to recognise our nation as a multi-lingual society, and highlight the importance of languages to group and individual identity. The Daily was joined by Anwar Akash, 2SER producer and director of the Bangla Academy Australia, to talk about what’s happening on Mother Language Day.

A report on Three days event

International Mother Language Day observed at the Sydney Parliament House, organised by Bangla Academy Australia

21^st February 2016, Sydney

Anindita Ahmed, Tania Chowdhury & Sharifa Sharmin
Translated by: Swarna Afsar

Bangla Academy Australia organised a three day long event from 20^th to 22^nd February to showcase the significance of the International Mother Language Day to the members of the parliament, members of the Bangladeshi community members and also people from several communities representing different languages and cultures. The events were hosted in the Sydney Parliament House and also in the Epping and Blacktown centres of the Academy.

On 19^th February, the inaugural day, seminar titled ‘My Language My Freedom’ was held in the Parliament House. The seminar was presided over by the international journalist, academic and the managing director of the famous radio station 2SIR, Mr. Steve Ahern. The chief guest for the seminar was the representative of the NSW premier and the Member of Parliament Dr. Geoff Lee. A temporary Shahid Minar was established at the Parliament House to pay tribute to the language martyrs. The seminar was conducted by the director of the Bangla Academy, Mr. Anwar Akash.

The chief guest of the seminar expressed his concern regarding the possibility of extinction of the oral aboriginal languages and the highly appreciated the incentive taken by Bangla Academy to preserve and promote mother language. He has expressed his earnest support and stressed the importance of continuing such incentives in the future.

A number of cultural activist and organisations in Australia expressed their solidarity with Bangla Academy by participating in the International Mother Language Day events. The Executive of Federation of Community Language School Mr. Michael Christodoulou, the President of the Hungarian Council Dr. Bella Cardos, Arabic language community leader Mohammad Alrubai, physician and linguistic Dr Terence Mark Hoolahan were present amongst the invited guests. Teachers from Vietnamese Language School Mrs. Tammy Tran, Mr. Thi Xuan Hoa Dao, Ms. Nam Tuan Tran, Turkish language representative Kara Ali, Dari language teacher Esenjada, Arabic School teachers Mr. Adid Alrubai, Tarique Jilawat, Dr. Hassan Sarwar and many others presented their speech during the seminar. All the invited guests welcomed the initiative taken by Bangla Academy in their speeches.

The media partner of the academy is SBS, a national broadcasting channel of Australia. The technical and cultural director of SBS informed the academy director regarding their telecast of ‘My Language My Freedom’ in 74 different languages before it went on air. This year radio 2SER has joined as a media partner and done a great job.

A four page research proposal written by the director of Bangla Academy, Mr. Anwar Akash was distributed amongst the invited guests in the beginning of the seminar. Imran Sawar, a student from Penrith Selective High School presented his article on International Mother Language Day. His emotional embrace of his mother Dr. Mashreka Sarwar after he finished reading his article, touched the hearts of everyone present in the audience. The principal of the Bangla Academy School Mrs. Sayeda Hyder answered the questions raised on the floor.

Adelaide High School from South Australia and Hornsby Girls’ High School is the official school partner to raise awareness among school students and school curriculums. Everyone united with the same goal to pay respect to the language martyrs and to commemorate international mother language day in Australia and all over the world. The event displayed posters and banners stating “I love you mum” written and designed by hundreds of school students in various languages paying tribute to their mothers.

The chief guest and the chairperson of the seminar Mr. Steve Ahern expressed his gratitude to the academy for organising the event and expressed the importance of the participation of other communities in future to make this event more successful. The thanked everyone who participated in the seminar and happily concluded the seminar.

On the second day, 20^th February, Bangla Academy organised a workshop on how to build Shahid Minar in the Epping Centre. The workshop was conducted by the academy director Mr. Anwar Akash and Anindita Ahmed, an architect from BUET, who is also the drawing teacher of the academy.

During the workshop the history of the establishment of the Sahid Minar in 1952 was explained and also the contribution of Mr. Sayeed Haider and others were mentioned. Anindita Ahmed drew the current design of the Sahid Minar by architect Hamidur Rahman. The children of the academy drew pictures of the Shahid Minar. They also made a Shahid Minar through a theatrical production. A documentary on Shahid Minar was presented in the workshop. The workshop was coordinated by Tania Chowdhury from Epping Centre.

The third and final day was 21^st February. The observation of the 21^st February in our daily lives was the main theme of the day and it was observed in the Blacktown Centre of the Academy. A temporary Shahid minar was stablished in the Blacktown centre on the third day, just like the first day in the Parliament House. Bangalis living in Sydney and people from many other communties came to the book and language fair.

Connecting to people from different languages and the participation in the hand writing competition rekindled the memories of the 21^st February in everyone’s mind. The book fair, food and drinks stalls, quiet corners to read books created a beautiful atmosphere. Books published by Bangla Academy, Oboshor, Ananya, Ankur, Anwesha, Anyaprakash, Bangla Prakash, Bidyaprakash, shahitya Prakash, Chandrabati, Charulipi, Dibyaprakash, Ityadi, Gatidhara, Kothamela, National, Rodela, Shudhhoswar, Somoy, Student Ways, Tamralipi, many others were available in the book fair.

Anindita Ahmed coordinated art competition amongst children groups. Handwriting competition for children, adolescents and adults was coordinated by Mashreka Sarwar, Sharifa Sharmin and Tania Chowdhury. Imran Sarwar presented his article to the audience. Syeda Hyder and Munira Bashar were the judges of the day. The prizes were distributed by Engineer Fazle Quader. During the discussion session the importance of reading and writing the Bangla language was highlighted by Syeda Haider, the Principal of the Bangla Academy School and Dr. Masreka Sarwar, the repesentative of the parents.

A beautiful poster was published by Bangla Academy on the occasion of International Mother Language Day in various medias and social media. Radio 2SIR promoted the event digitally till its conclusion.

To conclude the event the teachers and parents requested everyone to put more effort towards teaching their children how to read and write Bangla. The director of the academy Anwar Akash concluded the event by thanking everyone for their presence and cooperation.

News on Intl Mother Language Day

A scene from MLMF IMLD 2015

Parliament House, Sydney Sydney, 22 Feb 2015

IMLD MLMF February 20, 21 & 22, 2015

The Bangla Academy Australia hosted a seminar for ‘My Language My Freedom’ on February 20. The seminar was the first event in three days commemoration based on UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day.

This year the event was held at the Theatrette at the NSW Parliament House. The seminar featured presentations from a diverse range of speakers, Hon. Victor Dominello MP, a representative of the Premier of NSW. Mr Dominello also the Minister for Citizenship & Communities and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs was the chief guest. Special guests were present including Hon. Shaoquett Moselmane, MLC, Mr. Anthony Khouri, Honorary Consul-General of Bangladesh, Mr. Lou Petrolo, Strategy & Community Engagement Manager SBS Australia, Mr. Trent Wilson, Head Teacher Languages, Hornsby Girls High School, Mr. Albert Vella, President, Federation of NSW Community Language School Program, Mr. Béla Kardos, President Hungarian Council of NSW, Catharin C Kori, Director Hungarian Language School, Dr Akhteruz Zaman, Academic, University of Technology, Mr. Phil Voysey, Director Cultural Connexions, Student representative Mr ASM Shahriar Ifti from Sydney Secondary College, Mrs Yasmeen Islam Social activist and Mr. Anwar Akash, Director, Bangla Academy Australia.

Hon. minister Victor Dominello expressed his government’s gratitude towards ‘My Language My Freedom’ seminar from Bangla Academy. He congratulated the team to host the event for the first time (at the parliament house) and assured This program will be on from now, ‘this is the beginning’ he added.

Speakers emphasised the importance of supporting and maintaining the rich diversity of languages in Australia. A number of speakers stressed the crucial part language plays in shaping individual and community identity and enhancing the cultural diversity of Australian society. Speakers also called for more resources to be allocated to the teaching of languages in schools and universities.

Langauge Covered:
Aboriginal, African, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Bangla, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Chinese, Cook Islands/Maori, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dinka, Dutch, English, Estonian, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Mandarin, Maori, Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian-farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Tigrinya, Tongan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Yiddish.

The seminars opening announcement done by Sonia Yeasmin. Sayeda Hyder then presented information on the Language Movement related facts and figures in Bangladesh in 1952.

The Director of the Bangla Academy, Anwar Akash, welcomed guests and gave an overview of the work of the Bangla Academy in the past nine years. Phil Voysey presented a paper written by Mr. Anwar Akash on the history, objectives and values of Academy’s IMLD program ‘My Language My Freedom’.

Special mention must be made of Anwar Akash’s efforts in pulling the seminar together in a little over a week and a half. Although the number of attendees was small, it is expected that with funding and a longer lead time to plan and promote the event next year, that it will grow to become a significant annual event on Sydney’s multicultural calendar.

Bangla Academy also run a workshop on mother language on 21st February and 22nd February organised a language festival, book fair and cultural market at the Punchbowl Boys High School.