Gujarati School

Gujarati School is important to our association and to our membership. Our next generation has the right to acquire and we have the obligation to deliver as much as we can the skills of writing and reading our mother tongue ie Garavee Gujarati.

Some members amongst us may think that we need to move on, adopt the western language – English - and be done with it because we live in the western world. Others amongst us fear that once our mother tongue goes our identity will follow !

We could argue for the merits of one or the other view point till we turn blue in our faces – does our language deserve to be so short lived ?

We the current Committee are resurrecting our Gujarati School – same place and same time ie Sunnybank State High School – Gager Street entrance, Sunnybank on Saturdays during School term between 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm commencing 5th March 2010.

We are grateful to the last team for their effort in keeping this school going with some great work with the children.

We again ask that if you have family members who are interested in learning conversation Gujarati then please enroll – write to me at bakrania@bigpond.net.au before next Saturday so that I may make arrangements for you to attend.

The School fees we wish to apply are $70.00 per term per child or $125.00 per child for the whole year. If you have two children then the fee will be $60.00 per term per child or $110 per child for the whole year.

Funds raised are for GAQ to meet the expenses of the School – as always teaching is by volunteers.

To run the school we have a new teacher ( not professionally trained but just as enthusiastic ) Mrs Darshana Shah (Dhargalkar), who has a family here in Brisbane. Darshanaben is a Chemical Engineer with a M.A. from University of Mumbai and has co-hosted Gujarat Dhara on Brisvanni Radio. Darshanaben will need volunteers from time to time so if you wish to assist then please let me know in the first instance by my email bakrania@bigpond.net.au

We also wish to use the school facility for Adult English Conversation classes on trial basis – the concept is that there are number of new arrivals from India who may find the western language and culture hard to adjust to on arrival – we will offer half hour sessions on a weekly basis at a nominal fee of $10 per session per person between 2.00 pm and 4.00 pm. All are welcome and we will assist. If there is adequate interest then we will get born and bred Australians to assist.

Darshanaben hopes to deliver her passion for Garavee Gujarati to our children, let us help her do this for our children.

Our long term residents of Australia want to help our new arrivals, let us harness that eagerness to learn the skills of western language and etiquette.