21 Sep 93 residents take pledge to become Australian citizens
Last Friday the 16th of September, an Australian Citizenship Ceremony was held at the Gladstone Entertainment and Convention Centre. The ceremony was the largest ever in Gladstone, with 93 new Australian citizens taking their final steps to become official citizens.
The national day was launched in 2001 to raise community awareness of Australian citizenship, provide a day for citizenship-related activities and celebrations, and to offer a time to reflect on being Australian. An application for citizenship takes several months and the citizenship ceremony signifies finalisation of this process.
Citizenship ceremonies celebrate and acknowledge official citizenship status and often symbolize an important step in the journey of immigration for many new residents.
The September 16th ceremony involved Gladstone Region residents originating from Tonga, Philippines, United Kingdom, South Africa, Thailand, Latvia, Britain, United States of America, Mexico, Fiji, Canada, Cambodia, New Zealand, Colombia, Germany, Russian Federation, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, Egypt, Iran, Portugal, Mozambique and Nepal.
The ceremony included reading of a citizenship oath and affirmation and presentation of Australian Citizenship certificates. Gladstone has welcomed 215 new Australian citizens in the Gladstone Region so far this year, 283 in 2015 and 280 in 2014.
Congratulations to all that celebrated their new citizenship last week from GN!
