The language school of the Berri Greek Orthodox Community (BGOC) in South Australia’s Riverland region is at risk of shutting down for good due to shrinking enrolments.
Neos Kosmos spoke with Aphrodite Koutouzis, president of the Berri Greek Orthodox Community to learn why.
“We’re just seeing a decline, and whether that’s due to a lack of interest or time, it seems like language learning might not be as high a priority over activities like sport, which is huge here in the Riverlands,” she explains.
“We’ve put out the message to families through our Facebook page, I’ve personally reached out to parents, out of 30 or so messages, we’ve only had three or four responses.”
This year, the school’s number of prospective students is between seven and nine, down from 12 in 2021.
“At the moment we’re just in the midst of deciding whether we go ahead, working out whether that’s enough kids to keep it viable.”
“If you have kids stop, or start having nights off, the numbers drop. We could go from nine pupils down to four. These are all things we need to consider before making a final decision,” she says.
Last night the BGOC held a committee meeting, in an attempt to iron out the logistics; Aphrodite explains that if students pull out “then we’re back at square one.”
She says the community hopes it’ll get a clearer idea of how to move forward over the weekend.
Dafni Polymiadis, BGOC’s secretary says that she “grew up with Greek school, born and raised here in the Riverland.”
“We’ve got a sizeable community of Greeks here, It’s in excess of 300 odd families. My parents came to Berri in the mid 50’s but others came even earlier, some as far back as the late 20’s.”
“For my parents’ generation especially, it was so important we maintained our cultural connection, and of course continuing to speak Greek was a big part of that.”
Aphroditi shares that sentiment.
“It’s a bit sad to say but our elder generation is slowly passing away. So, maintaining our culture, our language, our traditions; these things make us who we are, we can’t afford to lose that.
Greeks have historically been one of the region’s most prominent migrant communities.
Aphroditi recalls that growing up in Adelaide, her grandparents would make the near 500km round trip to visit friends in Berri.
“We just want people to know that we’re committed to keeping our language alive, our organisation is prepared to do what it takes keep the school open, but we need support.”