Adult Multicultural Education Services (AMES) students celebrated the end of a multicultural bowls program with a bowls carnival today.
Participants from AMES St Albans and AMES Footscray hit the rinks to take part in a triples competition at Footscray Park Lawn Bowls Club.
The carnival marked the end of a Multicultural Bowls program, a partnership between AMES, Bowls Victoria and SpiritWest Services, the community arm of the LeasePlan Western Bulldogs.
Through the Settlements Grants Programme, the multicultural activity was another step in the process of helping AMES St Albans and AMES Footscray participants to become confident and have a sense of belonging in Australian society.
SpiritWest Engaged Communities Coordinator Kiemi Lai said the bowls carnival highlighted the importance of integrating multicultural communities and how this can be done through sport.
“The students come from a diverse range of backgrounds, including many Burmese refugees and a group of pre-literacy older adults,” Lai said.
“This bowls carnival has been very popular with the AMES students, so much so the Footscray Park Bowls Club have offered all participants the chance to play bowls there free of charge for the next 12 months. It’s great way for them to stay involved in the community through sport.”
Winners of the triples challenge came from AMES Footscray. Every AMES student was rewarded with a certificate for their participation by Western Bulldogs players Ryan Hargrave and Dylan Addison who attended the carnival.
For the past eight weeks, the lawn bowls program has been running at St Albans on a Thursday and Footscray Park on a Friday.
SpiritWest and AMES continue to provide specialist, multicultural language, settlement and employment services to a diverse range of communities in the western community.
The Multicultural Bowls program was also made possible through the assistance of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) and Go for your life.
