Under 18s Dance Party at Chambers Crescent Theatre, Malak Shopping Centre. $2 entry. Free Pizza. Soft drinks for sale.

Darwin Community Arts is organising a Community Dinner in the park at the bottom of Fawcett Court (see attachment).

Soft drinks and entertainment free. Bring a dish to share.

If you want to know more, register your attendance or help to organise the party, please ring nic on 8945 7347 or email: projects@darwincommunityarts.org.au

In November Darwin Community Arts (DCA) commence theatre, music, and movement workshops at Sanderson Middle School. The workshops will explore student interests and concerns.

Also in November, DCA will resume the "Our Malak/Connect" digital media workshops at the Malak Telecentro. DCA will be running podcasting workshops with the Multicultural Youth of the Northern Territory. DCA hopes to run video workshops with Melaleuca Refugee Centre and Danila Dilba by December.

After a good Cycle-Logical Festival and Under 18s Dance Party on 1st November, DCA is preparing for the next monthly community gathering for December. The Dance Party is scheduled for 20th December. DCA will hold a street party this month in a cul-de-sac in Malak (to be announced later) rather than having activities in Malak Shopping Centre Car Park (as was the case for the first two events: CulturFest and Cycle-Logical).

There are a few more things in the pipeline for the last months of 2008; watch this space for news.

Come on down to the Malak Community Garden to help with our Wet Season preparations!

Sunday 26th October
4 – 6.30pm
behind Malak Shopping Centre

Join the free activities:
* transplanting lemongrass
* potting some rocket to take home
* planting kangkong seedlings
* sharing gardening advice for the Wet
* laying duckboards & putting in some edging
* harvesting basil to take home

Bring gardening clothes, hat and positive thoughts.  Tools and cold drinks provided.

Info: ao@darwincommunityarts.org.au

Plans for the November Malak Community Gathering are under way. The
theme for this event is “Safe Cycling”. On Saturday, November 1st, we
will host a Bike Safety session for al ages. If you don’t have a bike
we will supply one from the pool of donated bikes we are receiving.
After the Bike Safety session, cyclist will cycle around Malak,
accompanied by drummers and other performers. The parade will return to
the car park for more entertainment and refreshments.

We are looking for volunteers to assist with this event. In
particular, we need the support of ‘bike mechanics’ to do safety checks
on the bikes. We are also still looking for bike donations. If you can
assist please contact Nic on 8945 7347 or email: projects@darwincommunityarts.org.au

The Malak Telecentro will be open on Saturday, 4 October 2008, from 2:30 to 4:30 PM.

The Malak Shopping Centre car park and Chambers Theatre came to life Saturday 20th September for the 2008 CulturFest. The afternoon started at a frantic pace with an energetic displaly of Irish dancing performed by the Keltika Irish Dancers. The dancing programme also featured Acholi, Burmese and Cambodian dancers.

Demitrious Magriplis provided a recital of Greek and English poetry and Reggae Dave entertained the crowd with his fine blend of folk/reggae tunes. Local celebrity Ali Mills delivered a humorous and heartfelt welcome from the Larrakia people, and a trio of Karen youth took to the stage to perform an impromptu traditional song.

Neighbourhood watch kept the young ones entertained with their go-karts, while the taste buds were satisfied by Burmese and Congolese culinary delights.

The outdoor cinema featured a locally produced documentary and the 2008 Refugee Film Festival.

My friend and I are doing this course in school called CBL. Witch is were we are at school for six weeks learning about the workplace and for four weeks we go out to the workplace. My friend and i have chosen to come to the darwin community arts centre with our supervisor Bong. We have only been here for a day and we think it is a great place to be. My friend and I are looking forward to staying here for the next for weeks.

Delia Lawrie MLA, standing member for Karama (which includes Malak), announced at the Darwin Community Arts launch on 3 August 2008 that she, as Treasurer, earmarked funding of $70,000 a year for three years to lease Chambers Crescent Theatre, under continuing DCA management, as a multi-purpose, multi-function community space. The funding will be confirmed after the NT elections on 9 August 2008.

The Malak Telecentro now has an ADSL+ Internet connection, which became operational on 3 August 2008, which provides up to 8Mb download and 384Kb upload speeds. This was a much needed upgrade with more and more people using the Telecentro over the past months. The new 8Mbit connection allows for more users to concurrently access and upload