Date: 3rd April 2025
A dream of many Hindu parents to send their children to a Hindu School is close to fulfilment, thanks to a funding announcement made by Federal Education Minister Jason Clare today. A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will invest $8.5 million to support the construction of the first ever Hindu school in Australia, an initiative by the Hindu Education and Cultural Centre (HEACC).
Hindu Education and Culture Centre has raised funding from the Hindu community and has purchased five acres of land in Oakville. The funding will be used to build a primary school there. Operated by the Hindu Education and Cultural Centre, the school will deliver the New South Wales curriculum embedded with teachings on Hinduism’s culture, traditions and philosophy. The new school is strongly supported by the Hindu Council of Australia and by Better Balanced Futures.
MP Andrew Charlton announced a funding of $2.4 million to build facilities for operating a Karma Kitchen, an initiative of the Hindu Council of Australia. Karma Kitchen has been operating for over 10 years with the support of various restaurants and volunteers’ kitchens to be able to provide free nutritious meals to homeless and vulnerable Australians. The kitchen will be built so that it can provide meals to around 400 people daily and expand services such as aged care meal support, community dinners, and crisis catering.
Hindu parents with school going children thanked the MPs for making the funding available. It is a dream come true for these parents who have been improvising for lack of a Hindu school by taking their children to various Hindu Dharma, Language, traditional
Hindu Dances, Music and arts classes. Their children will now be able to get all the education at one place during school hours.
Hindu youth were overjoyed that their children will be able to go to a Hindu school which they sadly missed out on. Many of them have contributed towards the purchase of the land and vowed to continue supporting the school in future.
Senior citizens thanked her for the announcement of Karma Kitchen funding. While Australia has a successful Meals on Wheels service for seniors, there is a gap for Hindus needing Hindu vegetarian meals. This funding for Karma Kitchen will fill that gap not only for Hindus but for everyone else who enjoys Indian food.
The idea of a Hindu education and cultural centre in Sydney was first floated 12 years ago. This was a vision only at that time as the community had a limited understanding of the various steps needed to realize this. Notwithstanding, several Hindu community leaders
continued to pursue this vision and finally turned it into a possibility when HEACC raised funds from the Hindu community to purchase a five-acre land in Oakville. The federal funding will be used to build and operate the primary school, along the lines of other
independent schools delivering the New South Wales curriculum embedded with teachings on Hinduism’s culture, traditions and philosophy.
Both these initiatives, securing funding for the Hindu school and Karma Kitchen, were taken up by the Hindu Council more than two years ago. Better Balanced Futures (a coalition of faith leaders from all major faiths) came forward to help the Hindu Council and HEACC. BBF’s wide experience in obtaining funding and supporting the building of several faith-based independent schools provided the basis for the Hindu Council and HEACC to prepare their funding requests and proposals, ultimately bringing the Australian Hindu community’s
dream one solid step closer to reality.
The processes recommended by BBF were used to prepare proposals, presentations, and funding asks. Professors Zehavit Gross and Suzanne Rutland visited the site and wrote an academic paper.
Further media Links :
https://www.indusage.com.au/?p=93289
https://www.indusage.com.au/?p=93284
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AcojdFVoJ/?mibextid=WC7FNe
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FkH1sLapy/?mibextid=WC7FNe
https://fijitimes.net.au/albanese-government-supporting-the-expansion-of-karma-kitchen/
