City of Darwin has a robust Sister City program which focuses on enhancing cross-cultural understanding and building vibrant and connected communities.
This year City of Darwin will celebrate the 40th anniversary of a Sister City relationship between Darwin and Kalymnos, with Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis launching an English and Greek language scholarship program to commemorate the occasion.
“We are very pleased to deliver an English and Greek language scholarship program which will encourage students in Darwin to study Greek and students in Kalymnos to study English,” Mr Vatskalis said.
“Kalymnos is my hometown and I am personally delighted to see this relationship is stronger than ever, as well as being able to encourage more students to learn a second language, both here in Darwin and in Greece.”
Kalymnos was Darwin’s first Sister City, with the relationship formally established on 28 July 1982.
Darwin has an established Greek community which dates back to the early 19th century, with the population booming in the 1950s when post-war immigrants arrived in Darwin to work as sponge divers.
There are more than 3,000 people from Greece in Darwin, based on the 2021 census, with the majority of residents hailing from Kalymnos.
To be eligible for the scholarship program applicants must be a current high school student in either Darwin and Kalymnos and study English or Greek as a foreign language.
They must submit a 400 – 500-word magazine article, in English or Greek, focusing on the topic ‘A safe, liveable and healthy city’.
“City of Darwin’s Sister Cities program has supported local language competitions for a range of languages for many years, and I look forward to seeing the scholarship entries this year,” Mr Vatskalis said
Successful scholarship recipients will receive $500 to continue their study of Greek or English as well as for related professional development activities.
There will be two rounds of applications for the Kalymnos and Darwin Language Scholarship Program, with the first opening in December 2023 and the second in March 2024.
