The Irish Telugu Association has been serving thousands of Telugu speakers in Ireland over the past 15 years.
Telugu is a Dravidian language spoken predominately by Telugu people living in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telegana. There are approximately 5,000 Telugu speakers in Ireland, with most of them residing in Dublin.
The ITA is a voluntary, non-profit organisation that has been providing social, cultural and charitable activities for the Irish Telugu community since 2007.
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They host five annual traditional and cultural events per year and provide a heritage school for children. ITA spokesman Prasad Varanasi told Dublin Live that the organisation started with the goal of promoting the Telugu language but has grown into much more.
He said: "Our Heritage school initially started with Language promotion but later we offered fine arts and dances streams to the school. In the last five years, we have opened schools at Citywest and Sandyford in addition to Ongar in Dublin 15.
"The number of children registered and attending at the new locations has grown from 10 to 25. We were able to continue our heritage school stream virtually during the pandemic period in 2020-21."
Prasad described the ITA is a "non-profit, non-political, and non-religious voluntary community organization". He said their mission is to "develop the literary, cultural, educational, social, and charitable interaction among its members, both adults and children".
The organisation has also become increasingly involved with County Council bodies, with some of their volunteers being elected to boards of the Fingal PPN, Fingal Migration Forum, Fingal Ethnic Network and LCDC committees.
Prasad said the group has seen an increase in the numbers participating in their five annual events, which are Indian Harvest Festival (Sankranti, January), Telugu New Year (Ugadi in March/April), Family Fun Day (Summer), Ladies’ Day, Saturday’s Heritage School (about 30 sessions annually, also includes summer classes on Arts & Crafts).
He said: "We are happy to have the active participation from the younger generation during these events. We have been seeing a 25% increase in the participation for our events on average."
If you want to get in touch with the ITA, you can find them on Facebook or email information.ita@gmail.com.
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