Students who excelled in their VCE exams were awarded on Tuesday, December 20 at The Greek Centre in Melbourne, Victoria.
The event, organised by Greek Community of Melbourne (GCM), aimed to bring together all the students and parents of the wider Greek community in a celebration of their academic achievements.
On the night, GCM President Bill Papastergiadis, and many others, congratulated the students on their successes.
“The GCM has education as its core service offering. In that regard, this year the GCM is expanding its awards night by recognising not only VCE students that excelled in the subjects of modern Greek and ancient Greek, but also numerous other students that achieved high scores across all the subjects available at VCE,” Mr Papastergiadis said.
“Tonight’s event welcomes these students and their families to our 15-storey cultural centre and we encourage them to join the GCM in its broad range of events. Our future as an organisation and as a community rests with our next generation leaders which hopefully many of these high achievers will be a part of this group.
“We thank Victorian Multicultural Minister Colin Brooks for attending this event and making our organisation one of his first ports of call since his appointment to this portfolio. The Government has been a strong supporter of our education and cultural initiatives, and we look forward to partnering on many more exciting enterprises.”
Dr Nick Dallas, Convenor of the GCM’s Education Committee, also congratulated the students for their efforts and success.
“A large part of today’s event is to celebrate those students who excelled in Modern Greek. The fact that we have students who are third, fourth and fifth generation and continue to do Greek to such a high level is admirable,” Dr Dallas said.
“You should be proud of this achievement, you are our future language ambassadors, our future educators. The other cohort that’s been invited today are those of Greek background that excelled in specific subjects. We wish you every success in your future field of study.
“But something we’d like to encourage in all our students today, is to continue to engage with your identity and language is often the key. That’s the strength of multiculturalism in our state, people have diverse backgrounds and they’re all encouraged to celebrate them, no matter what they are. Continue to engage with the Greek Community, become members, attend their events, volunteer for projects, give something back to your community, you’ll feel better for it.”
Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Colin Brooks, also attended the awards ceremony and stated he was “proud to be here tonight, at [his] first Greek Event” since his receiving his new position.
The Minister further welcomed everyone with a Kalispera, before going on to acknowledge the challenges that this cohort of VCE students have faced in the recent years, but also made a point to congratulate all the students in attendance for their hard work and success.
Minister Brooks also thanked the GCM for hosting this event and inviting him to his first trip to The Greek Centre.
READ MORE: New Victorian Multicultural Minister makes first official visit to Greek Centre.
