Joanna has been another one of adored Uniity community members, over many years, embracing our activities with a smile and genuine passion, to get to know people and to hear their stories.

 

By nature, Joanna is very community minded. She is involved with several groups and is working towards a variety of creative projects, always implementing ideas and driving initiatives. As an artist and community historian, she is actively engaged in community cultural development in South Australia and an executive committee member of the Helene & Helene Cypriot Women’s Organisation of Australia (OEEGA). She is also an executive committee member of Festival Hellenika, one of SAs premier Multicultural Arts organisations. Over the last three years, Joanna has engaged with the mentoring program ‘Talking With Aussies’ in conjunction with The University of Adelaide to assist and support international students from different cultural backgrounds including Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Middle East.

 

Joanna is a true artist and a creative at heart, living and breathing theatre and music for many years, before turning briefly to teaching for the education department. Although she had taught in the TAFE sector for 40 years, she wanted to formalise her skills and naturally chose to teach drama, history and visual art in the secondary education sector. She would be the first to say how it is important to be well read, well travelled, to expose yourself to literature, the arts, and be interesting and interested!

 

Joanna is a resilient, quietly powerful woman, who has a strong sense of justice and inclusiveness, as she reflects on her life, she considers that these traits may be in her DNA.

 

which maybe is in her DNA, “Sometimes you stop and look back at your life, and think, maybe you are doing some of the things your parents did. The impact of helping people and how community is so important – but in life, as it evolved for me, it wasn’t really a conscious thing. I think my parents lead by example more than anything else.

 

They were highly educated and well read people who loved history, the arts and literature. We had every book you could imagine in the house which was a virtual library. Books had the ability to transport me to other worlds, I realised that at a very early age”.

 

Her parents instilled a strong work ethic into her at a young age and showed the importance of community, acceptance and inclusion.

 

In one sense her parents were not traditional migrants from rural backgrounds, as many were in the 40s and 50s at the height of the migration surge to Australia. Joanna’s father came from an affluent academic family originally from Ottoman Turkey, but who were forced to relocate to Athens in 1922 during the Greco - Turkish conflicts.

 

Eventually at the war’s end, John Tsalikis migrated to Australia where he met Joanna’s mother Ireni (Rene). She had arrived in Australia as a small child from the island of Chios and with her parents ran one of the first continental bakeries in Adelaide. Sadly, like many young migrant children at that time, she was forced to leave school at barely 11 to help run the office and take the orders, Joanna says,

 

“My mother did however learn a lot about business, about people, and life pretty young. She was a keen reader, and wanted to educate herself when she couldn’t go to school, so it’s to her credit that she became an autodidact”.

 

After Joanna’s parents met in Adelaide and married in 1949, together they ran a successful continental deli in the city. It was located roughly where the Adelaide Hilton is situated today in Grote Street, The Grote Deli as it was called, and almost directly opposite Her Majesties Theatre.

 

“I recall some of the famous artists coming across the road for their coffee and cake where my father seemed to have the ability to charm them,” Joanna says.

 

Both Joanna’s parents, in between running the business and raising three children, still found time to give back to community. Her father actively sponsored many Greek migrants wanting to live in Adelaide. Through local government, he would advocate for their rights, provide information and support them and their families to make the transition to Australia.

 

During the 70’s, Joanna’s mother was appointed the coordinator of the Greek Parents & Teachers Association at Woodville High School during the 1970s where there was a large community of Greek and other European communities dominant within the school culture. She took on this role when Joanna’s father died unexpectedly in 1968.

 

“Instead of sitting about moping, Mum got on with her life, and fully connected with her interests. Despite grieving and being a single Mum, she knew it was important to keep active no matter what”, Joanna says.

 

Joanna really identifies strongly with Uniity and the intrinsic need for connection.

 

“Uniity provides a means for people being able to slowly connect and to connect with themselves as connecting with others.

 

“Over the years I have met many people that don’t have a large personal family circle, or those who may be estranged from family or from their children, or their normal environment in some way.”

 

They have all found a home at a Uniity activity or event.

 

“Uniity has been beneficial for me in lots of ways. At Read & Talk it opens up new words as we share ideas, allows me to be in the present and forget my own challenges.

 

Cook & Talk is a similar supportive environment; learning about new cultures, recipes and food.

 

Making new friends is so important, particularly now that I’m older,” she said.

 

Joanna is passionate about the intersect between culture and connection.

 

“If you want people to know who you are or know your culture, engage with other people and their cultures! This reminds me of a famous maxim from the British writer EM Foster who shared sentiments around head, heart and connection;

 

‘Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its highest’.

 

I really believe life is all about connecting to others, doesn’t matter who they are or where they are from, everyone has a story.

 

This striving for shared human experience is what binds us.

 

It is about the in between moments, listening to people’s stories, never underestimate or judge, there is always something to learn about in another human being.

 

I tell people to just get out there and connect and see what happens”.

Such as Raj and Sunita, who first attended Uniity activities after visiting their sons and grandchildren in Adelaide. Sunita heard from a friend about the wonderful time she has had at our Cook & Talk session.

 

“Back in India we had a wonderful life. Raj worked as a tax lawyer, and worked very hard. God was kind to us, but now we are interested in helping people and humanity. We were very much drawn to Uniity and the welcoming atmosphere of our first activity Cook & Talk,” says Sunita.

 

Helping humanity is something that is very important to Sunita and Raj. In India, her home country, she has worked for many years running two schools and working for NGO’s providing education to over 400 children in poverty.

 

She has contributed to the school systems, education processes, curriculum, and what the children would learn on a day to day basis, including holistic and cultural practices such as yoga, meditation and cultural rituals.

 

“Without these schools, these children would have no opportunity for education and no real options to progress in life. In India the parents are out working all day, and the children are staying at home with nothing to do. This way they can gain an education and have a future direction”, says Sunita.

 

Aside from education, they are also teaching children life skills, as well as cultural rituals and even how to start small businesses.

 

“We teach them things like Henna, so when there is a festival or a market, they can earn some money, and they also sell different things they make. They are so proud when someone buys one of their creations”, she said.

 

Back in Adelaide for 3-4 months of the year, Raj and Sunita have found new friendships through Uniity and re-connected with an old friend also.

 

“Initially I came to Cook & Talk as my good friend Nafisa recommended it. I then also attended Read & Talk, Create & Talk and Walk & Talk, and loved them all.  Raj was asking me where I was going – and so soon he came along too,” said Sunita.

 

We have made some good friends and we now go out and do lots of different things together. I have bonded with others in Uniity over a mutual love for cricket. It feels good to come to a new country and meet new people. We didn’t want to just stick to our own culture from back home,” said Raj.

 

We have created a new life in Adelaide, spending time with our family, meeting new friends, and part-taking in fun activities.