Image: Facebook
The Matt Guy Liberals and Nationals Government have announced today that they will provide $100,000 to kickstart and revive the much loved Weerama festival in Wyndham.
Wyndham TV spoke to the Liberal MP for Tarneit Preet Singh who said, “It is important to support local festivals such as Weerama and I personally wanted it to be back.”
“I’m sure many others share the same feeling. I would like to thank Matt Guy and the Liberal party for bringing this amazing news for our Wyndham community.”, he said.
The Weerama festival, which was held in Werribee usually one week after Moomba, on a Sunday, from 10 am to 4 pm celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2018 and has not been seen since, with the event being cancelled for 2019.
Cancelled due to a lack of timely funding and time constraints, Wyndham residents have been calling for Weerama to return since its collapse and see it as the only truly multicultural festival that involves the whole community.
That same year the Labor Government announced an $80,000 investment to make Wyndham’s 2019 Diwali bigger and better than it has ever been and $80,000 into Wyndham’s 2019 Holi festival.
Local resident Kelly Holton said, “Bring back Weerama so we can celebrate every culture.”
Council stated in 2019 that “Council’s Festivals and Event’s Strategy will provide a road-map for the development of events in our city and council will work with the broader community to ascertain what they would like to see in a signature event for our city.”
Back in 2015, Council retracted funding from the event and cited issues around risk management and committee governance, which to many, spelt the end of Weerama.
