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Dr Suresh Chalise, second from left, with assistant director of public health for NHS Berkshire East Angela Snowling and newly qualified Nepali health trainers ñ Himshikha Sujapati, left, Gokarna Rai, second from right and Yamuna Ghale, right
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Language is no barrier for borough's Nepali community

By Hugh Fort
July 18, 2012

The Nepali community in Sandhurst has been praised for its efforts to learn English.

Representatives from NHS Berkshire and Bracknell Forest Council joined more than 100 Nepali men and women as they were commended by the Ambassador of Nepal on Saturday, June 30.

Also at the event, held at Owlsmoor Community Centre in Yeovil Road, was Campbell Christie, principal of Bracknell & Wokingham College, Councillor Michael Brossard, deputy mayor of Sandhurst Town, and Bracknell MP Dr Phillip Lee.

The Nepali community had been taking part in a project called Swastha Prabhesh, which focused on supporting women and elderly men from the Nepali community to learn English and improve their access to health facilities.

NHS Berkshire was the first primary care trust in the country to receive funding from the European Integration Fund for the project.

Nepali woman Himshikha Sujapati said: “The interest from the community in learning the language has been tremendous. Many women were homesick, lonely and wary of going out because they didn’t know English.

“Now they are much more confident and have made friends through the courses they attended.

“Our team was delighted to hear their stories and how it made a difference to their lives. Language barrier can be a clinical risk. A member of the community translated breast cancer screening advice in Nepalese and this is now being used nationally.”

Among the guests was Cllr Paul Bettison, leader of Bracknell Forest Council, who said he was “immensely impressed” by the commitment to learning English, particularly as some of the women are in their 70s.

His Excellency Dr Chalise said: “I would like to thank the NHS and Bracknell Forest Council for their initiative in funding and running the project. I commend each and every learner for successfully attempting to learn English.

“Nepal shares an outstanding relationship with the UK and learning and accepting each other’s culture, values and way of life will ensure that the relationship continues to deepen.”

Sandhurst has a large Nepali community as many of the families there have or have had relatives living at the town’s Royal Military Academy.

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Most recent user comments 12 of 12

Dr BChing, it's because you seem to think all foreigners are bad and everyone born and bred in good old Blighty is a fine and upstanding citizen, strangely the same view given in the good old Daily Mail and Daily Express, which you no doubt regard as truthful, upstanding and defending the common man.

Normal people realise these two publications are xenophobic, anti-almost everything, enormously hypocritical and generally rather ludicrous.

Megaman
20/07/2012 at 13:18

Simple question Winstanley,Why do you wish to fill this country with foreigners and why is it wrong for me to not wish it to be filled with foreigners?If you insist on the world and his wife coming here at what point will even you admit the country is full?Simple questions.

DrBChing
19/07/2012 at 23:13

My thanks to those who have pointed out to Winstanley that I am entirely within my rights to voice my own opinions about the way the UK now looks and sounds.

Intolerant I may well be - but I am far from being an ignorant imbecile and I am certainly not a bleeding-heart liberal.

I rarely go abroad Winstanley and when I do it is for a short amount of time. If I can, I try to speak the local language in shops and restaurants - embarrassingly it is almost always the case that the locals speak my language better than I theirs. In any case it is, as I said, for a short amount of time that I am there, I have not moved there permanently.

In answer to the first question Winstanley poses about the harm or offence caused - well my views are that the harm being caused to the UK because of the way multi-culturalism has been allowed to grow un-checked has yet to be seen. As to the offence being caused - well, I'm sorry, but it does offend my eye to go into my local store and be hard pressed to come across another truly indigenous person.

As a liberated woman it appals me to see women walking several steps behind the men they are with and, sometimes, garbed head-to-toe in black with just their eyes showing. The very nature of our society and the way the UK looks is changing and I, for one, hate to see it.

Sus, Sandhurst
19/07/2012 at 16:11

No, You won't get an answer from me anymore Ching until you demonstrate an ability to hold a mature debate based on facts not assumption, prejudice, and ignorance. That's not name calling that's responding according to the available information put in front of me by you.

Winstanley, Bracknell
19/07/2012 at 15:01

All Winstanley can do is call people names.He/She has no cogent argument apart from wishing to fill this country with foreigners.Why?...no answer forthcoming to that I am sure.

DrBChing
19/07/2012 at 12:21

Dan - I'd take you seriously if you were accurate on any level. See my previous post where I've acknowledged the fair point you make, and I'm not too big to apologise for being rude. If you have concrete information that reflects my activities on this forum, or identifies my gender I'd be happy for you to share it.

Winstanley, Bracknell
19/07/2012 at 10:52

Indeed, Winstanley is allowed to challenge those views. Its a shame she asks the moderator to trim/delete any views that oppose hers. Childish name calling doesn't help her cause either.

Dan B
18/07/2012 at 19:19

You're right Dan - and I apologise for being blunt and rude Sus.

Let me make my point in a broader fashion by posing two questions.

1) So what if groups of individuals, families or whatever, of a nationality other than British are out in public speaking their native language? Who does it hurt? What harm or offense does it cause?

2) If you and a friend, or friends, or family, were out and about in Paris or Berlin, or had moved to Dubai or Hong Kong for work, would you religiously converse in the local language even if you and your colleagues/friends/family were better able to understand each other by speaking English?

Just because we witness others speaking a different language out in public doesn't mean they're not fluent in English or able to speak it to a passable degree.

I have close friend who was born in the UK but is of Indian and African origin - her parents speak English fluently as they have lived here for over 40 years and grew up in Kenya. In private, and in public, between themselves they speak a mixture of Gujarati and Swahili - for no reason other than these are their first languages, and they understand each other and are able to express themselves more comfortably in this way.

It annoys me that generalisations and assumptions are made about different national communities residing in the UK on the barest of observed facts. We don't yet live in a country where it is the law that everyone must speak English all the time, and too often it is forgotten that when we go abroad we make the least effort possible to communicate with the local communities ourselves - and we'd be mightily put out if they demanded we conduct all conversations in their language all the time.

Winstanley, Bracknell
18/07/2012 at 19:13

Dan B - Sus is entitled to their view - but Winstanley is entitled to challenge it.

Freedom of speech goes both ways - especially when thorny subjects are aired.

Maddie V, Bracknell
18/07/2012 at 17:34

He/she is allowed his/her say as much as you Winstanley.

Dan B
18/07/2012 at 16:18

Sus - go away you intolerant imbecile. Open your eyes and mind and you'll find the world is actually a far nice place than the Daily Mail/Express is leading you to believe.

Note to getbracknell - at what point are you actually going to start moderating, or at least challenging, the ignorance so often posted on this site?

Winstanley, Bracknell
18/07/2012 at 15:47

I wish more people who move to the UK to live would practice their English-speaking skills when out and about in the community. As usual, during my shopping trip to Tescos last night, I felt I was in a foreign land as more than half the people I encountered were speaking a language other than English.