AESL Meeting – May 2024
The Council of Estonian Societies in Australia (AESL) is an umbrella organisation that unites around 20 Estonian organisations all over Australia, belonging to the Estonian World Organisation.
At the last meeting, the AESL Board decided to support the establishment of the Mass Flight monument in Pärnu. Since then, Juho has written an introduction about the monument plan and started collecting donations in Australia. In the May board meeting, we discussed the next steps and what else we can do to keep the donations coming.
Sirje reiterated the need to publish a series of articles: if we all find a person whose childhood was in Estonia before the 1944 escape and ended up in Australia, then interview and publish these stories, this catches two birds – it increases donations for the monument and provides value to us as such stories are timeless. The AESL Board agreed to this action.
Additionally, this initiative is not only for AESL to write the stories, but is an open invitation for everyone across Australia to find someone in their circle who could share their escape story.
The second topic covered was children’s camps. AESL has supported the camp at Sõrve for many years, which is considered the most significant enterprise for our youth in Australia. In recent years, there has been a wonderful revival and enthusiasm for organising camps in other cities. Marin reported that Perth is in the process of organising its own kids camp, and Ingrid reported the same for Melbourne. The Board decided to support these developments and include funding for all ongoing camps in next year’s budget. It was also discussed that sometimes it is complicated for applicants to be aware under which organisation to put the application in; AESL is able to coordinate on behalf of the applicant.
Third theme related to AESL’s media presence. Ongoing work includes: Mission Statement (Juho), Constitution (Juho), AGM Wrap (Juho), Annual Booklets (Siiri); followed by explanatory articles about AESL initiatives, including the Eesti Päevad Festival (Sirje), Sõrve Camp (Siiri), Estonian Media in Australia (Siiri), and Language Teaching (Sirje).
Once the material is written and collected, we will approach the Australian Estonian Media Project for help to set AESL up under eesti.org.au.