Visit us on http://nepcis.org/ or follow on Facebook as “Nepalese Community in Sydney – Westmead”

Year 1, Vol 1. April 2019

Save the Date!

Mission and Vision Nepalese Community in Sydney is a community-based not for profit charitable organization, established to promote Nepalese culture and networking within the Nepalese residing in Western Sydney. Our mission is to create a cohesive, affectionate and helpful environment amongst families living in this area and keeping our community engaged by organizing a variety of educational, recreational and cultural events targeting to families. We will keep our community and well-wishers informed through our regular newsletter and social media.

[ Saturday 6th April 2019, 5:00PM]

Teej Celebration 2076 (BS) /2019 (AD)

[Friday 16th August 2019 5:00PM]

A P R I L 2 0 1 9

Venue – The Reg Byrne

Community Center, Fyall Ave Cnr

of Darcy Road Wentworthville.

Nepalese Community in Sydney (NCIS) Westmead

Newsletter, First Edition

NCIS Family with Popular singer Kalpana Kusum, at Teej 2018

Nepalese New year 2076 (BS)

Celebration Venue – The Redgum Function Center, 2

Lane Street, Wentworthville.

Sport update

Visit us on http://nepcis.org/ or follow on Facebook as “Nepalese Community in Sydney – Westmead”

Year 1, Vol 1. April 2019

Sports Update

Westmead Tigers FC

With a view to improve fitness and have fun along the way, a small group of our community members started playing football in early 2016 at Shannon’s Paddock, next to Finalysons Creek in Westmead. In this eclectic bunch, there were some who had never played football before they arrived in Australia, while some were playing together with their kids! Slowly, the playing members started to grow as the words got around. There were players coming to play from as far away as Campsie and Hurstville. For them, this was an opportunity to relive their past when they were in Nepal and provided a wonderful opportunity to be part of the local Nepalese community.

As the numbers grew, it was evident, the paddock was too small. The ground hunting then became a Saturday morning ritual! Whole team would be travelling to and from M J Bennet Reserve, Parramatta High School soccer ground, Freame Park, Sydney Smith Park, to find a free park to play. Now, for the last 21/2 years, the team has been playing at Sydney Smith Park at Westmead.

The club was formally registered on 18 January 2018 as Westmead Tigers Football Club. From a humble beginning, the club has grown to have 40 members now with teams ready to take on teams from other Nepalese communities across Sydney or even interstate.

Message from The President

On behalf of Nepalese Community in Sydney (NCIS Westmead), heartfelt welcome to all the readers of new community newsletter. NCIS, Westmead was established in 2015 to promote Nepalese culture and collaboration amongst the people from Nepalese origin and their non- Nepalese friends and families living in Sydney in this melting-pot of multicultural Australia. We are confident that this newsletter will help us in achieving this objective. More than 3,000 members have already participated in our cultural, sports, educational and/or networking activities in the last 4-year period. Regrettably, many could not participate in those programs because of various reasons. I hope this newsletter will help them to keep in touch with the community. We have decided to issue this Newsletter to spread word of our past and upcoming activities around as well. Our editorial team will work hard to bring you premium news from every walk of life. We also request you to kindly drop your suggestions and advices in this regard. Any criticism, opinions, and encouragement will be highly appreciated by the editors of the Newsletter. Ambika Sharma (President)

Important and Emergency

Numbers Nationwide Emergency - 000 Parramatta Council 1300 617 058

Cumberland Council 02 8757 9000 Westmead Hospital 02 8890 5555

Wentworthville Police 02 9688 8499 Parramatta Police 02 9633 0799

Westmead Tigers FC

Visit us on http://nepcis.org/ or follow on Facebook as “Nepalese Community in Sydney – Westmead”

Year 1, Vol 1. April 2019

Cultural Updates

We are community based, not for profit organization established to promote Nepalese multi-dimensional and diverse, multicultural society. With the growing number our nationals being migrated to Australia or in the process of getting migrated for better opportunities, we have got huge responsibility not only living ourselves with our own norms, values and our vast social cultures but also keeping our children and generations to come - updated so that they can carry it forward. Since our (NCIS-Westmead) establishment in 2015, we have completed following programs and we will put our best effort to continue and add more programs in coming days. To have detail information of any of these programs or for suggestion and feedback, please see our Facebook page: facebook.com/nepcis, or our website nepcis.org.

➢ Teej Festival Celebration (2016, 2017, 2018), we are growing each year in terms of involvement, participation and planning to have a great celebration in 2019.

➢ Nepalese New Year Celebration (2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019 – April 6 Saturday)

➢ Kids Dance Class – is one of our ongoing programs, runs weekly to promote Nepalese culture and dance to our younger generation. We have encouraging number of participations each year.

➢ Karate and Piano Classes – Until year 2018 we were running these programs but due to some reasons these programs are paused now, but we will re-start them as soon as we get demand from community members.

➢ We are working tirelessly to update our website www.nepcis.org with current and relevant information and we believe this will help our community and all well-wishers to have unbiased and right information on right time.

➢ We have our social media active and updated at all time, please feel free to ask, share or put your views which are beneficial to the community.

➢ This Newsletter is another initiative to reach out to the community with the helpful information. This is our opening edition, so we expect more suggestions and comment for the upcoming edition.

➢ Finally, we encourage everyone for their articles and happy to provide platform on our newsletter’s upcoming editions if we feel the subject is helpful to our community and overall Nepalese diaspora.

Visit us on http://nepcis.org/ or follow on Facebook as “Nepalese Community in Sydney – Westmead”

Year 1, Vol 1. April 2019

Introducing our community Volunteers

Laxmi is a registered nurse at Westmead Hospital and a regular First Aid volunteer. Having immigrated to Australia from Nepal, she is an ambassador for Nepalese culture and draws upon her own experiences to support members within her community. She is always eager to help the elderly, young mothers and children, and is a helpful guide for people navigating Australia’s public health system. Laxmi also been helping Nepalese Community in Sydney providing place to run kids dance classes for 2 years. This has been acknowledged by entire NCIS Westmead team. Recently, Laxmi has been nominated as community hero by Cumberland City Council. This is the first such nomination received by any of our community members and is a proud moment for all of us.

Ambika Sharma (aka Ambika Dai) is a founding member and elected president of NEPCIS from its inception in 2015. He was born in Kaski, Nepal. He completed his first and second degrees from Nepalese universities. He also did an MBA in finance from Kathmandu University. He spent several years working in various government corporations, private financial institutions and international development agencies in Nepal. Being a highly qualified professional, he migrated to Australia under skilled migration visa with his wife and daughter. Since then he has been working in various accounting roles (as a CPA) at local, state and federal government departments. He is a family man with an inclination to spirituality, strict adherence to ethical and social values. He has been living in Westmead area since 2012. He loves helping people in difficulties.