The Mayor of the City of Hume-Melbourne, Cr Joseph Haweil, is a strong advocate for this event. He spoke to SBS Assyrian about multilingualism in Australia and how we lead the world in helping to preserve the mother language.
Cr Haweil understands the importance of being multilingual. He was born in Australia to an Assyrian father and a Greek mother.
His father is fluent in Assyrian and Greek; for many years, his father took him to the Greek Saturday language school and every Sunday to the Assyrian language school.
When Cr Haweil was selected for the first time as Mayor in 2020, he immediately started advocating for the council to officially recognise International Mother Language Day and celebrate it as an annual event in the Council’s calendar.
Cr Haweil says, “since then, the council has been celebrating this day with many events held at the council and other parts of the city of Hume city, with activities for children and adults, to create that sense of inclusion and pride of the multilingual and diverse city,”
Watch storytelling at Hume City Council made on 21/02/2021
As for the Assyrian language, Cr Haweil emphasised the importance of teaching the language to the children.
Luckily, he said, “ in Sydney, the Assyrian community has established many schools, teaching Assyrian and other schools that belong to the Assyrian Church of the East, like St Hurmizd Assyrian Primary School, have in the curriculum, one hour a day Assyrian language classes for most of the pupils.
The Mayor says, "We are lucky that the Australian government encourages and promotes learning the mother language. It is up to the community to take the opportunity and further enhance the language learning process,"
Watch this video message from HCC about International Mother Language Day from21/02/2021
