By- Mohammed Fakruddin Jamal
The multicultural Eid festival event organised in short time broke all the records of crowd participation in western suburbs. Wyndham Eid festival had a huge response from local and non local residents, who enjoyed the first ever Eid festival organised in Werribee.
More than 12,000 people attended the biggest ever ‘Eid Festival’ organised in Western suburbs of Melbourne. The local communities involved in this mega event were Australian, Bangladeshi, Indian, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Sri Lankan, Somalian and Sudanese. The Mega event would not have happened without the voluntary work of all the members of Wyndham Eid festival committee, sponsors and supporters.
WyndhamEid festival officially started with prayers by Shaykh Rachid and Shaykh Issa from Virgin Mary Mosque. The event had cultural performances from young and talented future role models. Quiz competition on Islamic history and Australian history was also conducted. The amazing event had Delicious Food stalls, Colourful clothing stalls, Henna, Face-painting and Amusement Fun Rides for all the family members (the highlight being the first ever camel ride in Western suburbs).
Speeches by Hon’ble Jill Hennessey Minister for Health Victoria, Hon’ble Joanne Ryan Federal Member of Parliament for Lalor, Hon’ble Peter Maynard Mayor of Wyndham city council, councillor Bob Fairclough, councillor Peter Gibbons, councillor Intaj Khan and councillor Gautam Gupta . Wyndham city council infrastructure director David Suder was also present on the occasion. Fawad Ahmed Member of Australian cricket team also spoke on the occasion.
Wyndham Eid festival President and Community Leader Syed Abdul Mujeeb thanked all the attending members of the public, the sponsors, media people and the volunteers. The man behind the show councillor Intaj khan also thanked the Guest and the volunteers for organising a memorable multicultural event in such a short span of time. Wyndham Eid Festival Vice President Khalid Farooq, also thanked all the communities for coming together to organise the Mega Event. The incident free event concluded with the amazing ‘fireworks’ sponsored by ‘Hoppers Pizza’.