Australia Day Award
Living Treasure
N.R. Wickiramasingham (Wicki) has been heavily involved in community life since arriving in Australia 29 years ago. He has been a support for refugees and founded the Tamil Cultural Association, the Victorian Tamil Cultural School and also the Community Volunteer Broadcasting Service.
He has also been a board member of the Southern Migrant and Refugee Resource Centre since 1993. Wicki’s commitment and dedication to supporting local community members is widely known and respected.
Living Treasure (2005)
Since coming to Australia in 1988 with his wife and two young children, N.R. Wickiramasingham’s (Wicki) community activities and efforts have contributed enormously to the stability and preservation of the Tamil culture in Melbourne.
His leadership qualities and capacity to search for solutions have provided many opportunities for his community.
He is qualified as an interpreter and translator and had several private sector and government jobs, especially with the Department of Immigration, helping Sri Lankan migrants.
He is a Justice of the Peace and a marriage celebrant, roles that enable him to provide assistance to the Hindu community and community at large. He has been a school councillor for Dandenong West Primary School, Cleeland Secondary College and Noble Park English Language Secondary School.
Mr Wicki was a founder of the Victorian Tamil Cultural Association in 1993 that, among other ventures, runs a children’s Tamil cultural school.
He has spent twelve years with the Association’s Settlement Services Committee helping migrants find employment, housing and responding to other settlement needs.
He has run a two-hour Tamil radio program for twelve years for Tamils in Victoria that has been funded and supported by the City of Greater Dandenong. The program is a resource for new migrants and provides community and international Tamil news, music and talkback. He has been a national reporter on SBS Radio every Sunday providing national Australian and international Tamil news.
Mr Wicki is convinced that this is his homeland now, as do his children. Despite his love for his former country, his ties and links with the local community mean that so much of him is here.
The energy and commitment he possesses comes from a conviction that to perform community work one must like to do it and must heartily accept it. It should not be done for stature or position.