This year's festival was the 2nd year running for the ACT Community Language Schools Association to co-ordinate the Languages Showcase at the National Multicultural Festival. The National Multicultural Festival is an iconic 3-day event that brings together more than 170 multicultural communities in the ACT Region to celebrate their traditions, cultures and languages through singing, dancing and storytelling, food, art and costumes.
The Festival opened on Friday 16th February with all 8 stages coming alive with music and cultural dances. There were many stalls selling multicultural food.
On Saturday the performances continued with singing, dancing, food stalls and workshops. The ACT Tongan Language and Cultural School held a Tongan Language Workshop. The major event was the Parade of all the performers, brass bands and other music playing. It ended at Glebe Park with the Minister for Multicultural Affairs closing the Parade ceremony from the Rotunda stage.
On Sunday morning, the Languages Showcase opened the performances at the AKUNA STREET STAGE with a 2-hour showcase of languages. It featured our Community Language Schools, Mother Tongue poets and Mother Language performers.
In 2024, we had performances of cultural dance, singing, reading and storytelling from the ACT Tongan Language and Cultural School, Filipino Language School of Canberra, Canberra Tamil School, Canberra Hindi School, Arab Academic and Cultural Community Centre and the ASCC Standard Chinese School. Mother Tongue featured 4 multilingual poets delivering their compositions in English, Serbian and Filipino. Mother Language presented us with the Kabbo-Kothon groups of children with music and storytelling in Bengali language and beautiful singing by the adults. The Languages Showcase was funded by the National Multicultural Festival".
