Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Saturday I attended a very special event at the Auburn town hall, the graduation of the Dinka language school class of 2009, 12 extraordinary Australians working hard to build a life in this country while keeping alive the culture of their homeland for themselves and their children. The Dinka Literacy Association does a great job in conducting a community language school in Auburn, Merrylands and Lidcombe. The Dinka language is the predominant language spoken in southern Sudan. Many arrivals in Australia from Sudan over the past decade are Dinka-speaking south Sudanese arriving under Australia’s refugee and humanitarian program after many years in refugee camps. The largest Sudanese community in Sydney lives around Blacktown, but there are also significant numbers in Lidcombe, Auburn, Granville, Merrylands, Guildford and Parramatta.

The Dinka language was banned by Khartoum during the civil war, so a person from the south wanting to get an education had to go to the north and learn Arabic. The Dinka language is an integral part of south Sudanese identity, yet many Dinka adults do not speak it well and are illiterate in it. The Dinka Literacy Association has given the Dinka language a new life in Australia. Last year, assisted by Auburn council, they launched a Dinka picture dictionary. There is also a Sudanese Dinka community radio program run out of Radio 2000 FM Burwood, which broadcasts across Sydney.

The graduation took place the day before 21 February. That is the day specified by the UN as International Mother Language Day, an international recognition of the centrality of language and culture and the very real benefits to a community and to family cohesion when a child can speak the language of its parents and grandparents. It is a day that I know well because my Bengali Australian community, who fought so hard to have 21 February recognised, have been kind enough to invite me into their celebrations each year. For them, 21 February is a significant and bloody day in the homeland’s fight for the right to speak their own language in their own land, and they are keen to spread the message of the importance of the day. This year I was proud to celebrate International Mother Language Day, albeit a day early, with one of our newest communities.

For me, there are very real benefits to our community when we have within it the sophisticated language skills that come through a diversity of cultures. By working to keep their first language alive for themselves and their children, the 12 students who graduated on Saturday are contributing not just to their own wellbeing but to the strength of our community. I know, from talking to many children of migrants, particularly those who came in the fifties and sixties—particularly Greeks and Italians, who have settled so well—of their regret at not learning the language of their parents, and I fervently hope that our newer migrants do better and that their children continue their work in keeping their languages alive in their new country.

Many of our south Sudanese Australians have suffered unimaginable loss of family, country and heritage and, for them, studying Dinka is also part of the healing process—a way to reclaim a very small but important part of what they have lost on the pathway that led them to us. I would like to acknowledge Santino Rang Yuot, the Chairman of the Dinka Literacy Association, and Joseph Aguok, the principal of the Dinka language school, for their wonderful work. (Time expired)