National Heritage Week Grant to launch Greek Journeys through Bonegilla

Parklands has been successful with a National Heritage Site Promotion Program grant from the Australian Governments' Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population & Communities. 

The grant supports actions of the four partners involved with the Bonegilla Migrant Experience Heritage Park; Bonegilla Migrant Experience Steering Committee, City of Wodonga, Albury Library Museum and Parklands. 

Bruce Pennay, Co-Chair of the Bonegilla Migrant Experience Steering Committee has written two further booklets for the Bonegilla Migrant Experience Heritage Park series.  Other booklets in the series include; The Army at Bonegilla, the Displaced Persons, Never Enough Dutch, Calwell's Beautiful Balts and The Young at Bonegilla.

The Australian Government grant will fund the following;

a) Printing of the "Greek Journeys through Bonegilla" booklet, which tells the story of post-war assisted Greek migration from the arrival of the first 500 Greek rural workers in 1953 and takes particular note of the workplaces to which they were allocated. The booklet will complement work underway developing a Greek Exhibition Space on the site.

b) Printing a revision of an earlier booklet, now called Bonegilla Food. The revision reflects recently scholarly work on the importance of food in the migrant experience and draws on a wider bank of official and unofficial photos and memory fragments that we have collected.  Thank you to the City of Wodonga for also sponsoring the printing of this booklet.

c) Running a series of Building Conservation Workshops, providing an opportunity for the general public to learn new skills and help preserve the 18 heritage buildings.  Join us and work alongside students from Catholic Education Wodonga and refugees from the Albury Wodonga Community College's English as a Second Language classes.

• Project Launch: 10.30am Thursday 14 April 2011
• Where:              Bonegilla Migrant Experience Heritage Park, Stillman Road, Bonegilla
• Workshops:       Bookings essential for these free workshops