Cultural Activities
SydMal’s Cultural Activities
Sydmal organises cultural programs to promote and foster our culture among the community. Our programs are attended by a wide spectrum of the community. The main intentions of our programs are cultural integration and social harmony , assimilation of multi-cultural values to younger generation of Australian Malayalees.
The two major annual programs we conduct are:
Onam celebration (Harvest Festival) in August/September – One of the main features of Onam celebrations is cultural programs reminiscent of Kerala’s own rich cultural and artistic life both present and past. During the celebrations we also provide a traditional, delicious Kerala style food to the attendees of the program. This program is attended by local/State/Federal politicians and prominent leaders of sister communities.
Christmas celebrations in November/December – The Christmas celebrations include a vast array of different types of cultural programs accompanied by a sumptuous dinner. The main focus is reminding the attendees of Jesus Christ’s message of love, kindship, compassion and mutual help.
We conduct events ranging from social networking events (for example, family fun day) to social/cultural/artistic events with the aim of providing a stage for the community’s talents to perform and also meeting the various interests of the community. Through these events we provided an opportunity to the community to familiarise with the traditional art forms of Kerala by organising Mega Thiruvathira (300 performers), Margam Kali (40 performers) and Opana (15 performers) as well as Ottam Thullal and Chenda Melam (Percussion) etc.
During the Covid 19 pandemic, Sydmal conducted ‘Sydmal Connect Programs’ to engage Malayalee community in provide some sort of entertainment for the community who were isolated. We started our first program called ‘Sydmal connect’ on Easter Sunday 12th April 2020 at 7pm. Second Sydmal connect program was scheduled on Saturday 2nd May2020 at 7pm. A consultant Physician and Nephrologist from the community presented medical insights on the COVID 19 outbreak. In our third Sydmal connect program conducted on 13th June 2020, the main focus was a discussion on Covid 19 and the impact of that on youth. We honoured top five HSC 2019 achievers from the community.
Sydmal Connect 4 (Saturday 18th July 2020) focussed on Bounce back- a booklet that compiled the reflections of the Covid time experiences of the young and budding writers and artists of our community was released on the day. The kids of our diaspora got an invaluable opportunity to interact with a Parliamentarian. There were healing music, and a live drawing session which catered to audience of all ages. Sydmal connect 5 was scheduled for Saturday 19th September. The program provided an exciting opportunity to participate in a live discussion with eminent personalities about Covid impact on work life balance on families. The discussion also helped to explore the life beyond Covid.