Last Tuesday all the anguish and angst of working magic with small budgets was validated for Dr Norris Ioannou the director of Nexus Multicultural Arts when his organisation was granted the Governor’s Multicultural Award 2009 at a ceremony held at Government House.
The prestigious award was ‘for outstanding contribution of a community organisation’.
As Dr Ioannou said to Neos Kosmos “Nexus Multicultural Arts celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2009 and the Governor’s Multicultural Award was a timely recognition of our organisation.”
He added that the South Australian Multicultural Commission was “a hard nut to crack, they did not see what we were doing in context of community culture development, and they realised that we we were doing community development using the arts as a bridge”
Dr Ioannou, was excited when he underscored that the award was “tangible recognition, and especially as the award was from outside the arts community, it is important and says that arts can achieve social change”
The news of Nexus’ Governor’s Multicultural Award win came on the same day that two Nexus-presented Fringe shows received glowing reviews in the media.