Canberra to host its first Nepal Festival on Saturday

General secretary of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) of Australia, Raju Adhikari said the Nepal Festival was first held in Sydney in 2006 and has since expanded to all capital cities in Australia, now including Canberra.

There will also be a parade beginning at Garema Place at 10.30am, which will go down City Walk and arrive at Commonwealth Park at Stage 88 at 12.30pm.

"The major attraction of the festival is obviously the parade. Therefore, we start with the cultural parade," Mr Adhikari said.

"If you've got any idea about Nepal and Nepalese culture, even though we are a small country, we've got very diverse ethnic communities within the country. So the parade is the opportunity that we take here to showcase the costume, music, art and culture of all of those different ethnic communities.

"So in the parade, we'll have different groups dressed up in their ethnic attire and probably playing some musical instruments, as we walk along the City Walk."

Festival attendees can expect cultural performances on stage from 6pm and food stalls severing Nepalese foods.

"The Nepal Festival is all about displaying our culture. It's a celebration for us, but we want non-Nepalese people to come and celebrate with us so that they can have a feel of Nepali culture," Mr Adhikari said.

Federal and territory politicians will be in attendance, including David Smith, Tara Cheyne, Chris Steele, Elizabeth Lee and Peter Cain.

The Nepal Embassy is also supporting the festival and the Ambassador of Nepal to Australia Kailash Raj Pokharel will also be attending.

The festival has been funded by sponsors and all the work to organise the event has been volunteer-led.

Canberra's Nepali community has grown over the last few years, with the most recent census showing Nepal as the fifth most common place of birth in the ACT and Nepali as the third most-spoken language in the territory.

The 2021 census recorded nearly 6000 Nepali people living in Canberra, but Mr Adhikari said there was likely more than 50,000 Nepali people in Canberra and surrounding regions, including Queanbeyan and Yass.

"The main reason for the increasing Nepali population in Canberra and the region is the government's regional-focused migration scheme and the ACT government has this scheme of government nomination towards permanent residency," Mr Adhikari said.

"The main reason for the growth of the population is the is the arrival of Nepalese from interstate, not directly from Nepal.

"Lots of the international students who came to different parts of Australia for their studies, finished their studies and moved to Canberra for a favourable migration environment."

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