Today the Seniors group met at Palmerston to attend a Christmas party hosted by MCCI. It was a lot of fun to meet Santa and get presents Christmas lunch was yummy followed by group games. Multicultural Association of Canberra thanked MCCI for doing a wonderful job throughout the year in spite of Covid challenges It was a pleasure to be invited to the Christmas party MAC is proud to have initiated this group with MCCI. Seniors are having a wonderful time each week. Due to the Christmas holidays, this group will reopen on 13 Jan 2022. The other group initiated by MAC with Carers ACT will reopen end of January next year Have a happy festive season everyone and don’t forget to wear your mask indoors. In the spirit of giving MAC committee members and the community donated Christmas goodies and clothing generously to blue door shelter.

On 12/12/21 MAC and GOPIO organized a retreat at Birrigai facilitated by Art of Living. This event was organized for multicultural community to feel happy and build resilience which they were experiencing during Covid lock down.The whole day workshop focused on Yoga, Meditation, Reflection and Team building skills and also providing opportunities to make new friends and socially interact. Special thanks to Facilitator Krishna Nadimpalli and Art of Living team to facilitate this event flawlessly. All participants enjoyed this retreat and felt recharged.

This event was covered by ABC television and televised at pm on the same day. Link of the news clip is below:

MAC initiated a mental health workshop on 5/12/21 at Bharat Int in Belconnen for community well being and mental health post Covid lock down. Community was feeling the pinch of social isolation and this was the perfect timing. Dr Deepa Shingal a physiactrist was the facilitator of this event and she gave us lots of tips on how to reduce stress and keep mentally healthy and happy. Participants enjoyed a hands on workshop which was very interactive. This was followed by a yummy lunch at Bharat. This event was supported by MHCC and GOPIO.

MAC celebrated Diwali on 31st November 2021 at jewel of India in Manuka.It was a very multicultural event whereby many community leaders from various associations like Bangla desh, Srilanka and Africa participated along with Indian community leaders and members of the Canberra community. The event started with lighting of lamps, speeches by the politicians and cultural event. this was followed by a scrumptuos lunch at Jewel of IndiaThere was representation from High Commission of India by Counsellor Narendra Rana, and also Minister Rebecca Vassaroti, MP David Smith and MLA Nicole Lawder

It was a pleasure to announce that Senator David Smith, MLA Nicole Lawder and Raman Bhardwaj have accepted to be MAC patrons.

This event was supported by ACT govt and GOPIO.

Canberra Times and WIN Network are talking about the efforts of various members, they did during the COVID-19 times and continue to do so.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7422032/multicultural-community-leaders-can-only-do-so-much/

Multicultural Association helps Canberrans in need

With recent award for the organisation, the MAC continues to organise many efforts for people during COVID-19 times.

Here are few links to the videos

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Every year ACT Government gives awards to individuals or organisations and recognize their work and contributions in the community.

This year Mrs Nishi Puri received for her many initiatives in Canberra. She took responsibilities for many events along with her team at MAC:

1. Helping Covid 19 affected
2. Conducting many multicultural events amongst senior citizens
3. Arranging health and fitness related events and many more

We congratulate for her selfless efforts and on receiving award.

The Multicultural Association of Canberra helped the community by providing hampers and cooked meals for the University of Canberra International students pantry, people in quarantine across Canberra and OzHarvest. We will continue to extend our efforts during this unfortunate lock-down period.

We are also conducting various sessions of exercises, bhangra, zumba classes virtually over Zoom for the community each week to increase connectivity and reduce social isolation. This also gives the community an opportunity to exercise and enables us to support the small businesses by paying the facilitators of these workshops.

All information and updates from the  ACT and Federal govt are shared with the Community via our Facebook and newsletters. International students who are distressed are encouraged to call us for help so that we negotiate in the right direction. We are following all protocols of COVID 19 safety during all the activties.

MAC makes a point to build and network with larger communities in Canberra and one of such efforts was with CALD. It helps understand and reach out to different challenges and discuss with politicians and community members.

GOPIO and MAC organised a fund raiser event on June 6th with help of Shonan Rozario, the owner of jewel of India. The event raised $2230 and sent to PM’s fund of India. We are grateful for all guests who attended for this initiative.