A Nepalese language class on the Border is aiming to bridge the communication gap between Bhutanese/Nepalese children and their grandparents, while preserving their culture and identity.
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Every Sunday during school terms, about 40 children arrive at Lavington's St James Anglicare Church hall to learn basic Nepalese phrases like, 'water, milk, tea, food'.
The two and a half hour class is run by volunteers from Bhutanese Australian Community Support Group Albury Wodonga (BACSGAW) and supported by STARTTS Albury (NSW Service for Treatment And Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors) and the Albury Wodonga Volunteer Resource Bureau.
BACSGAW president Harka Bista said the Border's Bhutanese/Nepalese children grew up with English as their first language, but this made it difficult for them to communicate with their Nepali speaking grandparents.
"The children's parents are at work and much of the time the children are with their grandparents at home and they have a problem with communication in their own language," he said.
"Our aim is to build the gap between grandparents and grandchildren and more importantly we are trying to preserve our culture, our identity and language."
The classes first started in 2019, and after a pause due to COVID-19 has restarted this year.
Mr Bista said BACSGAW was looking for a permanent place to run the classes and was hoping to become a registered as community language class through NSW government by next year.
STARTTS Albury's Jodie Farrugia said language was part of the healing process for multicultural and refugee background communities.
"Language is the rhythm of your culture," she said.
"It's the explanation of your culture ... your culture lies inside the language and the formation of the language and when you look at the beautiful Nepali language it's a different script even.
"So understanding how all of that connects with culture, spirituality, history and it's embedded it in everything they do in their culture, so it's important that we celebrate that and allow it to be part of their upbringing."
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Mother of two children in the class Hema Adhikari said it was important her children learnt Nepali because they lived with their extended family.
"I have got my in-laws living with me and they have very poor English, so they can't communicate with our kids if they speak in English," she said.
"So if they learn our language at least they can communicate and have a good relationship at home.
"Preserving our language and culture is the most important thing."
Ms Adhikari said she would like to see the class receive more support to expand the program.
"Then we could get more kids to participate and then at the end we could be able to implement our language, Nepali, as a subject in the school curriculum," she said.
"That would be great, that's what we're hoping for, it may not happen in the near future, but if we try there's nothing that's impossible."
Mr Bista wanted to thank Albury MP Justin Clancy and the St James Anglicare Church committee for supporting the classes.
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