About Us
Message from Pregy Pillay
Vanakam All
A community without some sort of medium to represent its interest is like a body without a soul.
This is precisely what triggered me in 2012 to engage with Tamil leaders with a view to establishing an organisation that specifically promotes Tamil Culture and represents the needs of the Tamil People in the North West Province. I am fully aware that we have a very small population of Tamil People in our province, but irrespective of how small our population is I believe we have a responsibility to associate, promote and develop our culture.
This vision began to mature in August 2014, when I met with the President of the SATF, Mr Karthi Moothsamy and the Vice President Mr P.Govender. On the 14 September 2014, at the National Tamil Adult Eisteddfod I was officially tasked by the President to be the co-ordinator for the North West Province.
Since then we developed a data base of Tamils in the Province, drafted the constitution, setup a website and designed the logo. I urge our members to recognise this organisation as part of your identity, and to please contribute to it by continuously introducing Tamils living in the North West Province to our organisation. To make it easy, I am setting up a website with an online membership page. All we need is a Name, Cell Number and Email if you have.
Whilst developing the organisation, I also questioned myself why a federation and not an association. A federation is an organisation made up smaller organisations whereby each of these smaller organisations independently manages their own affairs. So we are not here to dictate to the existing temples and structures, but rather to support these organisations and to unite our Tamil people.
I also asked myself, what exactly makes us Tamil? I can proudly say that Tamil is one of the oldest languages in the world, currently spoken by more than 66 million people globally. As Tamils we have our own unique culture, tradition, food, dress, dance, music and religious practices. In South Africa we are estimated to be in excess of 650 000 Tamil speaking people.
Launching this Tamil Federation is an easy task, but what I’ve discovered over the years is that getting peoples participation and attendance is the challenge. Whilst speaking to our members, I discovered that almost all of our Tamils in the province shared our vision. But when it comes to participating our people are challenged with time and distance. Considering that we are so few Tamils in our province, to maximise participation I intend using conference calls, Skype and social media to encourage your participation.
But you need to come to the table and realise that it’s only by associating that we can start to promote Tamil unity and Tamil culture.
Be Proudly Tamil
Mika Nanri
Pregy Pillay
