On Tuesday 14 June 2022, members of the Lao Oz team had the opportunity to meet and welcome His Excellency Mr Sinchai Manivanh, the Ambassador of Laos in Canberra.

During this meeting, Lao-Oz Incorporated president Vicky Rattanavong, as well as Lao-Oz Incorporated received merit medals and certificates as a token of appreciation for our community work undertaken in Australia and Laos.

We are honoured to have received this reward and recognition and it has motivated us to continue with our mission of promoting and preserving Lao culture.

Lao Oz Language & Culture School held an Open Day on Saturday 5th February 2022.

Lao Language as well as Lao traditional dance, art and music is taught through theory and practice. Children are taught in a fun, interactive manner, incorporating Lao language and culture into their daily lives.

Classes run from 9.30am to 1200pm every Saturday within the school terms.

All school aged children will be accepted into the school, with enrolments taking place at the Open Day.

We are a NSW creative art provider - please feel free to use your creative art voucher for the one-off enrolment fee. Contact us for more info.

Lao Oz celebrated Australia Day at Wonoona Beach, near Wollongong. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We had lots of fun in the sun and plenty of good food and drink, plus a fun group of people to celebrate with.

Thanks to the Australia Day Council for funding the event.

Lao Oz Seniors Group.

One of our objectives in Lao Oz Incorporated is that Lao culture is sustained and embraced in Australia. This is not only for students in @Lao Oz language and culture class but also with the senior members of our community.

Today some of our senior community members met up to do some light exercises followed up with some “tea and talk”.

As much as they enjoyed the exercise, we are certain that they enjoyed the talking the most!

Lao Oz held its first "Tea & Talk" zoom session, attended by about 25 people. It was the first of a series of online events to help people in the Lao community connect and discuss issues regarding COVID19, vaccinations and the current lockdown across Sydney.

For many of the participants this was their first video conferencing experience and they handled the technology really well, there was none of the normal "your still on mute" statements and no background noise, etc.

Topics discussed ranged from:

- Concerns about the lockdown, loss of social connection,
- What positives came form the lockdown (like learning how to do online grocery shopping)
- How to access government health and general information in Lao language
- What the "new normal" would be for participants, like being more careful in crowds, not making life as busy, etc.

We hope to see you all again online next week.