The Nepalese Society of Northern Tasmania launched their Nepali Language Literacy Campaign on Saturday.

The campaign will provide younger people of Nepalese descent lessons on their mother language, allowing them to communicate with older generations.

President of the Nepalese society Santosh Adhikari said it is important that younger generations learn the language to preserve the history of the Nepalese people.

“I heard somewhere that if you are not good at foreign languages, you are not good at your own mother language as well,” he said.

“Basically, why we’re doing this literacy campaign is that we feel that there is inter-generational communication gap between our children and our parents.”

Mr Adhikari said it’s difficult for children who have started learning Nepalese to then start learning English after moving to Australia.

“Lot’s of the Nepali people have been coming to Australia - they have travelled abroad for the higher study and part of their business and in that course they have brought their children with them,” he said.

“The children are learning English here, but they are not too familiar with the Nepali language.”

Mr Adhikari mentioned that older generations were pleased to see the younger ones learn their mother language, especially those trying to communicate from Nepal.

“When relatives in Nepal call and they want to talk to our children, sometimes what happens is we say ‘they’re playing or they are sleeping or they have gone somewhere’,” he said.

“The people in Nepal cannot communicate well in English, sometimes we have to make some kind of excuse.” 

The campaign will comprise of free weekly lessons for participants every Saturday. Mr Adhikari said children, such as 3-year-old Ishanui Adhikari, are very excited to learn.

“A lot of people are very excited and they’re happy with what we are doing here,” he said. 

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