The sixth chapter of ATC was inaugurated in Canberra, ACT on Sunday 9 May 2010.
ATC was launched in NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, WA in August 2009.
The launch was successful and several ATC residents joined to strengthen ATC.
The highlight of the event was that the youth in Canberra initiated and organised this launch of ATC.
Community leader, Dr Ragavan attended as a well wisher, wished the youth the very best in their mission and spoke of the importance of youth taking the forefront.
ATC Chairman Prof Raj Rajeswaran was regretably unable to attend but sent the following message:
Chairman’s message
Ladies and Gentlemen,
My warmest welcome to you all for attending this important meeting to help form the 6th Chapter of the Australian Tamil Congress in Australia's capital city.
Due to other commitments, I am unable to share this momentous occasion with you all in person, and I am sincerely sorry for that.
We have only recently gone through a great trauma in our homeland, having lost so many lives of our brothers and sisters and leaving hundreds of thousands maimed, homeless and powerless. While our desire is to try to help them to relieve their pain and suffering immediately, it is our responsibility to bring immediate peace, freedom of movement, normalised living conditions, economic empowerment and self-determination achieved through short, mid and long term planning and actions. This needs to be achieved through making friends in the international community through political dialogue, diplomacy and most of all, unity among ourselves around the world. To achieve this, we need a structured approach through organisations such as ATC in Australia, British Tamils Forum in the UK and the Canadian Tamil Comgress in Canada, just to name a few. That is why ATC is proud to be part of and the chosen Australian member organisation of the Global Tamil Forum.
I also realise that there is nothing on this earth that can be achieved without money. Talk is cheap. Whilst it is easier to get financial support from our community to carry out humanitarian projects to help our people in the short term, we must also invest in strategic work that will help out people in the long run.
Our job as members of ATC is to make this happen in Australia. To this end we have achieved a lot during the past months since our official launch in August 2009. We have opened many doors we could not before, most if not all parliamentarians know who we are and we have made tremendous inroads into the Australian media as you would have seen quite a few good articles supporting the Tamil cause and the injustices done to them so openly.
These achievements did not come for free, and a lot of time, energy and money was spent to achieve these priceless results. All these projects further proved to us that you need money to succeed and I am so grateful to our community for being so generous in helping us to achieve this fete.
Ladies and Gentlemen, today you must all be so proud that you are taking part in this important occasion to form an ATC Chapter. The power to achieve anything politically and diplomatically lies in Canberra and makes you the most important of us all.
Whilst thanking all those who took it upon themselves to make this launch a reality, I wish you all great success and welcome you all to our ATC family and we will bring a permanent solution to our community in our Tamil homeland.
Kinds regards,
Dr Raj Rajeswaran
