4 days ago
This rural town has grown into a thriving multicultural hub
Gargi Ganguly came to Dubbo in 1999 for a job. She told herself it wouldn't be a long stay. "I thought to myself, look, yeah, it's a job. I probably stay here two or three years and then I'll move on and go somewhere else," she said.
She's been a resident ever since and is the chair of Orana Residents of Indian Sub-Continental Heritage (ORISCON).
They say that the dust of Dubbo gets to your shoes and it doesn't let you go. The town in New South Wales' central west is one of the quickest growing multicultural hubs in the state. It boasts particularly large Indian and Nepali populations. Lord Mayor Josh Black says the migrant community has made the town a better place to live. "It's really added to the whole sense of community and giving us something that we didn't have previously in Dubbo." Gargi said while it hasn't always been an "easy journey", it's been worth it. "They say racism is always at the surface ... not only in country towns, it's everywhere. And I suppose it creeps from the feeling of a fear of the unknown," she said. "What we wanted to do is create an accepting sort of a community. And ORISCON has helped in creating that, because we create spaces for whole of community [to] come together. Not only a particular discrete cultural group, the whole of the community." She said when the whole community comes together, "that's where you learn, you grow, you develop and you become Australians".
This episode of SBS Examines celebrates 50 years of SBS travelling to Dubbo to spotlight stories of successful and proud multicultural communities.
