Hazara Academic Awards Night

Dr Loy Lising (2nd r.) with members of the SABA collective at the Annual Hazara Academic Awards Night 2021

Editor’s note: Members of the Language-on-the-Move research team undertake numerous forms of service and community outreach throughout the year. We often speak at community events about aspects of intercultural communication, language learning, and bilingual education. In this post, Dr Loy Lising shares a brief report of the Fourth Annual Hazara Academic Awards Night. She attended the event as an invited keynote speaker about heritage language maintenance.

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Hazaras are a persecuted ethnic minority group in Afghanistan and many have resettled in Australia. Young Hazara Australians have formed an organization called Saba, which is dedicated to inspiring Hazara Australians to pursue their dreams through education.

As part of these efforts, SABA celebrates an Annual Awards Night in honor of community members who have performed exceptionally well in their high-school leaving exams or their university degrees.

This year’s Annual Hazara Academic Awards was featured on ABC News and you can watch short interviews with some of the young achievers who are set to become community leaders and role models for the next generation.

In addition to the awards and cultural performances, the program for the night included a speech about the importance of heritage language maintenance. It was a great honor for me to deliver that speech as a representative of the Language-on-the-Move team and of Macquarie University, where many SABA members study for their degrees.

My task for the evening was to speak about the importance of bilingualism in ensuring community cohesion across generations. At the same time, the evening was a great opportunity to hear powerful stories of resilience, determination, and success.

I sincerely congratulate the awardees on their achievements and thank the Hazara community and particularly the Saba group for letting me share their special night.