16 — Centralian Advocate, Friday, October 25, 2013

NEWS

Indian community opens doors to Diwali

Paramuir Singh, Ashish Batra, Tarun Soni, Sphurti Choudhari, Paul Fitzsimons, Rashmi Kant, Uday Arya,Praveen Panchal, Rajneesh Kant, Shalani Ganji, Aditya Khaire and Praveen Panchal at the Diwali launch

Picture: PHIL WILLIAMS

Corey Sinclair

THE town of Alice Springs isinvited by the local Indian com-munity to help celebrate one ofthe most important Hindu festi-vals.

Diwali, or the Festival of Lights,is a five-day festival of prosperityand knowledge, marking the vic-tory of good over evil.

Organiser Praveen Panchalsaid everyone is invited to takepart in the festivities on Saturdaynight.

‘‘It is for everyone,’’ he said.‘‘Whoever wants to join in.’’

In terms of size and festivity,Diwali is the Hindu equivalent ofChristmas.

‘‘This is the Indian Christmas -as good as that,’’ Mr Panchal said.

‘‘It is just to sort of come togeth-er and celebrate. It’s good for thekids.’’

Mr Panchal said locals will beable to enjoy a wide array oftraditional Indian cuisine andtreats.

‘‘We enjoy celebrating festivalswith food,’’ he said.

‘‘Food is a big part of our cultureand we just sort of want to show-case that for everyone to enjoy.

‘‘We’re going to try and makemany sweets.’’

The Alice Springs Indian Com-munity Association was estab-lished at the start of this year, andorganisers decided to make Diwali

one of the first official celebrat-ions.

‘‘We never actually got togetherin big numbers with all the Indiancommunity and celebrated it (be-

fore),’’ Mr Panchal said.

‘‘When we formally registeredour association, Paul (Fitzsimons)came to the party and said he’shappy to lend us the hall at CDU,

so it was a great opportunity for usto celebrate in this way.’’

Mr Panchal estimated thatthere are between 500 and 1000Indian people living in Alice

Springs. ‘‘But not only Indianpeople from India but also Nepaland Fiji,’’ he said.

Charles Darwin University’sCentral Australia Director PaulFitzsimons said everyone in thecommunity is invited to partici-pate.

‘‘We’re trying to get away fromthis idea of just having the Indiansor just the Somalis, ’ ’ MrFitzsimons said.

‘‘We’re trying to have all sorts ofpeople come and take part.

‘‘We will have Indian peoplethere but we will have other peoplefrom the community joining inand getting to understand eachother culturally.’’

Mr Fitzsimons said the wholeidea of CDU was to drive socialand economic development in theNorthern Territory.

‘‘What we’re doing in Alice andother venues is saying we want toengage with the community andhave the community engage withus,’’ he said.

‘‘We want to make the doorsopen to anyone and everyone tocome and enjoy the facilities.

The Diwali festivities will beheld in the Desert Lantern rest-aurant at Charles Darwin Uni-versity’s Sadadeen campus from6.30pm tomorrow.

Cancer fight hat pleaCorey Sinclair

SISTERS Sinead Strawbridge andSeona Dayman, from Alice Springs,are raising funds and awareness forInternational Brain Tumour Aware-ness week.

In March, a MRI scan revealed28-year-old Brendan Roe had a braintumour after he collapsed at work.

He was flown to Royal AdelaideHospital, where he underwent majorsurgery to remove the tumour.

Brain cancer is the number onecancer killer for those under the age of39 in Australia.

Only 22 per cent will still be alive fiveyears after diagnosis.

Mrs Strawbridge and staff at OfficeNational, and Seona and the staff atPiccolos Cafe, will be raising aware-ness by participating in the ‘‘wear ahat for a day’’ fundraiser.

Their family was devastated byBrendan’s illness and say he is a fun

loving character who has the determi-nation to beat the awful disease. Theyare asking the people of Alice Springsto get behind the fundraiser by mak-ing a donation and wearing a hat inthe week starting October 27.

If you are needing office supplies,call in and donate a dollar at OfficeNational on Whittaker Street. If youare in town for breakfast, lunch ordinner you can donate at Piccolos Cafein the Todd Mall.

Saddling up for their futureTWELVE teens aged be-tween 14 and 18 recentlyundertook a 50-kilometrehorse trek between Ipoleraand Ntaria School.

There is a large horseculture in Hermannsburg(Ntaria), which promptedthe introduction of a horseprogram to teach ruraloperations.

As part of the course,students work towards aCertificate I and II and haveto cook, clean and look afterhorses.

They also must use math-ematics for activities likefencing, and also created avideo about how to saddle ahorse.

The students had beenheading out to Ipolera sinceJune, spending two to threedays training horses as wellas building yards and fenc-ing. The students spentthree days travelling be-tween Ipolera and theirschool with six of theirhorses, arriving during anassembly.

Tom rides onALICE Springs rider TomWilloughby will be one ofthe favourites for the bullride at this weekend’sWarwick Rodeo in Queens-land. Formerly from Gawleri n S o u t h A u s t r a l i a ,Willoughby qualified for theNational Finals Rodeo for athird time in June.

Willoughby is sixth on thebull ride standings after thefirst five months of the newAustralian ProfessionalRodeo Association (APRA)season.

He moved up the stand-ings after taking out the bullride at the Katherine andDarwin rodeos in August.

Willoughby scored 78 towin at Darwin, beatingrunner-up Kurt Sheppardof Atherton in Queenslandand third-placed MarkLamberth of Humpty Doo.

Eye on JapanCENTRAL Australia’svalue in the resource sectorwas a topic of discussion atthe Minerals InvestmentOpportunities Seminar inJapan this week.

Chief Minister AdamGiles opened the seminar inJapan and launched a newtool to encourage invest-ment in the resource sector.

Mr Giles said the invest-ment guide details potentialprojects as well as import-ant government and indus-try contacts. Visit the in-v e s t m e n t g u i d e a twww.investnt.com.au.

*More than 75% of people aged over 14 read the Centralian Advocate each week. That’s more than 15,000 readers per edition!

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