Pinoys capture senior and youth posts in Australia

By ANTHONY IAN CRUZ
January 16, 2008

Two Filipinos — a senior citizen and a young student — have been appointed to key public posts in the Australian region considered by the largest concentration of Filipinos anywhere in Down Under as their home.

According to the Philippine consulate-general in Sydney, the Blacktown City Council recently named Rosario Natividad as member of the council’s senior citizens advisory subcommittee.

Natividad holds a doctorate degree in education and is a former president of the Sydney Australian-Filipino Seniors, Inc. (SAFSI), one of the largest Filipino senior citizen organizations in New South Wales.

Blacktown City is home to about 20,000 Filipinos who now comprise the city’s third largest ethnic grouping after native Australians and those with English heritage.

Youth representative

Another Filipino is also set to take on an important post as youth representative in Regional Advisory Council of the larger Nepean-Blacktown area.

21-year old Anna Clarissa Gacis, who is currently taking up commerce law at the University of New South Wales, will assume membership in the council in March 2008.

Prior to her appointment, Gacis was coordinator of the Read Philippines Project at the Blacktown City Library.

According to the consulate-general, the council is a state-government body tasked to address issues related to multiculturalism, ethnic affairs and cultural diversity.

Among Gacis’s constituents as youth representative are 25,000 Filipinos in the Nepean-Blacktown region.

Lauded

Consul-General Maria Theresa Lazaro lauded the appointment of Natividad and Gacis.

“Natividad’s qualifications as educator and active community member concerned with the welfare of senior citizens put her in a position to bring valuable views and inputs into the city council on how to mprove local services for the elderly in Blacktown,” said Lazaro.

Lazaro also said that she expects Gacis to bring the dynamism and voice of the youth in the regional council whose 15 members come from local communities and state government agencies.