The New Zealand Nepal Society on Saturday, April 14 hosted its Nepal New year 2076 in the presence of 400 plus members of the Nepalese community and parliamentarians and community leaders.
Nepal welcomes New Year based on its Vedic calendar, called Bikram Sambhat, which is 57 years ahead of the English calendar. This occasion also marks Baisakh Sankranti for the Nepalese community.
The event at Freemans Bay community centre was attended by, Leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges, Minister for Trade and Associate Finance Minister, David Parker, National List MPs Kanwaljit Bakshi, Melissa Lee, Parmjeet Parmar and Labour Party MPs Deborah Russel, List MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Police Superintendent Karyn Malthus, Ethnic Responsiveness Manager for Metro Auckland for NZ Police Jessica Phuang, Jeet Suchdev from Bhartiya Samaj and former NZICA president Bhikhu Bhana amongst other community leaders.
The event was organised not to celebrate the new year of the community but also to recognise and felicitate the high achieving individuals especially youngsters from the Nepalese community.
“The members, especially youth of our community are doing extremely well in their respective fields, and we wanted to acknowledge their hard work and achievements in their respective fields, be it sports, academics, creativity, extra-curriculums etc.,” President of New Zealand Nepal Society, Dinesh Khadka told The Indian Weekender.
Mr Khadka thanked the guests and the community members for making events like New Year and Nepal Festival 2018 and other sports and cultural events a big success.
The event displayed the richness of the cultural dance and music of the Nepalese community.