15/02/2018

ISSUE 2

http://www.nctsangam.org.au/

E-mail address: nctamilsangam@gmail.com

Newsletter II

Known to be one of the oldest civilizations in the world, the Tamil people belong to the prestigious Dravidian Family. Tamilians also, like other South Indians, take much pride in their rooted culture and make great efforts to protect their 2000 years old history. The state has been ruled by the Cholas, Pandyas and the Pallavas and has been flourishing since.

Out of 74 million Tamil people in the world, around 62 million live in Tamil Nadu. Rest of the Tamilians are scattered in different parts of India and the world, mostly in the northeast of Sri Lanka. People who live in the state understand the ethnicity of their culture and how it marks their identity in the world. They are very adherent towards their rituals and traditions like following the caste system, religion and community traits, etc.

A large emigration also began in the 1980s, and these recent emigrants have most often moved to Australia, Europe, North America and Southeast Asia. Today, the largest concentration of Sri Lankan Tamils outside Sri Lanka can be found in Toronto.

Few facts on Tamils

Inside This Issue

Newsletter II 1

River Lights 2

Movie Night 3

Tamil School Deepawali celebration 4

Tamil School Excursion 5

Christmas celebration 6

PAGE 2

Newsletter II

River lights is a festival Celebrating diversity through food, music, dance and interactive experiences, Riverlights transforms Central Maitland into a global village. Visitors can see, taste, feel and experience the different cultures being demonstrated.

The program will include a range of activities such as live music, dancing, language classes, lantern making and cooking demonstrations.

Every year Newcastle Tamil Sangam participate in this vibrant festival to showcase Tamil culture and Heritage in terms of lantern making, Dance, Music, and food.

NTS members as usual put up a stall where home cooked delicious food and savouries were served for free tasting and sale at moderate prices to just encourage and give credit to our participants.

NTS ladies participated in the live kitchen event where they showed some skills on cooking some mouth-watering snacks to the public.

The NTS children came forward to volunteer at the stalls and sold almost all of the food to the public”.

“The kids performed 2 fabulous dance performances getting best ovation and

applause from the audience at the Riverlights Maitland”

PAGE 3

Newsletter II

Movie Night

After a lot of deliberation and careful considerations, Tamil Hit

movie 96 starring Vijay Sethupathy was selected to be screened

for the Movie night.

As usual the event was very much welcomed by the NTS member

families and offer their full participation and enjoyed the movie.

Dinner was arranged by the NTS committee where PIZZA was

ordered and served to all present.

To keep the momentum continuing, a trivia night was arranged

after dinner and questions from Tamil Cinema was asked to the

audience. A winner was picked and was offered a token price as

an encouragement.

24/11/2018

PAGE 4

Newsletter II

11/11/2018

Diwali is called the Festival of Lights and is celebrated to honor God

Rama, the seventh avatar (incarnation of the god Vishnu). It is

believed that on this day Rama returned to his people after 14 years

of exile during which he fought and won a battle against the

demons and the demon king, Ravana.

NTS Tamil school organizers took the opportunity to celebrate this

popular festival in Tamil school to spread and educate the customs

and culture to the kids and share the happiness with the Tamil

school children, so that our rich heritage is carried over to the

coming generations.

Mrs. Kalpana was invited as the chief guest and she gave a speech

about Deepavali to the kids and how the previous generations used

to celebrate the colorful festival in parts of India and Sri Lanka.

Kids lit up fireworks to celebrate the tradition and enjoyed the

occasion.

Children & Parents played a Kho Kho game which brought back

childhood memories for many of them

Parent volunteers took interest to prepare sweets and snacks for

the day and offered to all participants at the end of the celebration.

PAGE 5

Newsletter II

Tamil School Excursion

Mungo Brush campground is a popular and well-known

campground near Hawks Nest on the north coast. It's a great

place to camp, kayaking and picnic area.

So, an one day excursion was arranged by NTS Tamil school

students accompanied by their parents. A location where there is

lots of fun for the children and families.

Main event was the Kayaking which, an all-new experience for

most of us and evidently everyone enjoyed it to their best, though

it was bit tiring after completion. One must admit it was a great

exposure to this sport and a leisure activity in this part of the

world.

Kayaking was followed by Hot and Tasty barbeque prepared by

parent volunteers and parents took rest under the shade on one

of the hottest days of this summer and apparently kids enjoyed

the swim in the Lake.

02/12/2018

PAGE 6

Newsletter II

Christmas Celebration @ Tamil School

Another commendable gesture and effort from Tamil school

organizers to celebrate the Christmas with the NTS Tamil School

students embracing the culture of this country.

Tamil school children received certificate of appreciation from

NSW cultural and awards to having participated in class learning

and current term school activities.,

Highlight was the Santa (Pradeepan) distributing Christmas gifts to

the children

Tamil school teacher Mrs. Rohini Shankar took relief from teaching

this year due to her personal commitments and new teacher Mrs.

Konesh Thiyagesan filled in to her shoes. It is worth mentioning that

Rohini had provided her best services to her best in coaching the

kids to learn the Tamil language.

Finally, party finished by serving Christmas lunch brought in by all

parents for everyone to eat and enjoy.

16/12/2018