Nepalese Participating in Pako Festa – the Biggest of its kind in Australia

Nepalese Community is going to participate first time in Pako Festa that will held on 23rd of February, 2013. Different organizations from Melbourne and Ballarat will join the festival and Lumbini-Kapilvastu Day Movement effort will to introduce Nepal as the birthplace of Buddha. In the festival Miss Nepal Australia, 2012 Deepashree Shah will perform Kumari dance.

Pako Festa, now in its  thirty-first year, is Geelong’s much loved, award-winning, free,  annual community arts festival – the biggest of its kind in Australia. Managed by Diversitat and held on the last weekend of February in Pakington Street, Geelong West, “the multicultural heart of Geelong”, it incorporates an extravagant street parade featuring around ninety floats and hundreds of performers representing forty-five affiliated ethnic communities and around sixty other community groups and organisations. The street is lined with stalls selling traditional foods and arts and crafts, and nine separate stages in the precinct offer performances of music and dance as well as interactive workshops and exhibitions. Pako Festa has become Victoria’s premier multicultural event, attended by well over 100,000 people in each of the last three years and estimated to inject close to $2.5 million dollars into the local economy just over the course of the day itself.

Personality: Dichen Lachman

Dichen Lachman (born 22 February 1982) is a Nepalese-born Australian actress and producer, best known for appearing in the soap opera Neighbours as Katya Kinski and Joss Whedon‘s science fiction drama television series Dollhouse asSierra. Lachman played Suren in the supernatural drama television series Being Human. She is currently appearing as Tani Tumrenjack in the ABC military drama series Last Resort. She acted as executive producer on Lust for Love.

Lachman was born in Kathmandu, Nepal, and lived in Nepal until she was eight years old, before her family moved to Adelaide, Australia. Her mother is Tibetan, and her Australian father is of German heritage. She attended Norwood Morialta High School, St Mary’s College, Adelaide, Annesley College, and the University of Adelaide.

Lachman filmed an advert for Wanadoo which was filmed in Australia and aired in the United Kingdom. In 2005, Lachman joined the cast of the Australian soap opera Neighbours as Katya Kinski. She originally auditioned for the role of Elle Robinson, but the producers decided to create the part of Katya for her.