PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

March 2024

Kia Ora!

Wishing you all health and happiness!

A warm welcome to all of you - I humbly present myself and take on the responsibility of serving you all as the President of Manawatu Multicultural Council (MMC) and I am ever so grateful for the guidance and support of my predecessor Nina Kirschbaum and our wonderful whanau at MMC, comprising of our Board members, invaluable staff, community connectors, volunteers, support teams and each one of you, whose commitment and dedication to this organization are what drew me to MMC in the first place. I am sure that together we will achieve new heights in building a healthier, happier and safer global community, where everyone can feel included, work hard and strive to build a better tomorrow.

We have started this year off with a busy three months of fantastic activities. In January, we had the UCOL Cap visit, saw the Summer Reading programme take off and we got to celebrate the Lunar New Year. February kicked off with Ethkick, always a huge crowd-pleaser, an amazing weekend of celebrating our cultural diversity with Festival of Cultures, starting with the Lantern Parade, followed by the World Fair with performances, music, food, arts and crafts from all over the world and ending with Teas and Coffees of the world which drew hundreds of people to our city’s famous Caccia Birch House. Palmy is a student city and end of February had us enjoying Massey Campus Carnival and UCOL Orientation Day.

We are looking forward to a very busy and happening months ahead, with several events planned for our extensive communities, which we will be reporting to you in the next newsletter.

I would like to thank all our sponsors, funding agencies and donors for your generous contributions and continued support. My heart-felt gratitude to the various communities, our MMC staff, volunteers and members, each one of you is what makes us better people, we strive together to make a better world. I look forward to my tenure as President of MMC and will do my very best to serve you to the best of my ability, thank you all so much for your support.

Ranjita Sengupta | President, MMC