Partners
There are several other associations with connections to the Latvian Association of South Australia Inc.
These are: The Latvian Hall...Latvian Relief Society...The Latvian Church...and The Latvian Saturday School.
The Latvian Hall
The Latvian Hall or TALAVA, meaing the old mountain castle, was established in 1966 and has earned itself the reputation of being a well-known Adelaide venue for a variety of functions.
Conveniently located on the perimeter of the city at Wayville, the Latvian Hall offers a venue suitable for performance, social and corporate functions.
The Large Hall with stage and podiums can seat up to 500 and is said to have the largest and best wooden dance floor in Adelaide.
The Hall lends itself to theatre productions, musical and choral concerts, receptions, conferences and trade shows.
A number of smaller meeting rooms are also available.
Both halls have access to the bar and a well appointed kitchen.
The Latvian Hall is open for inspection 10:00am to 6:00pm.
The Latvian Relief Society
The Latvian Relief Society Daugavas Vanagi is similar to the Returned and Services League of Australia and its objectives are comparable to those of Legacy.
The organization was founded in 1945 by a group of Latvian soldiers at the Zedelghem Prisoner of War camp in Belgium.
At the time, there was an urgent need to provide support for injured veterans and their displaced dependents in war-ravaged Europe.
The Adelaide branch of The Latvian Relief Society was founded on 26th January, 1952.
Besides helping war invalids and former deportees, the Relief Society also sponsors the Latvian school and community activities around the country.
In the 1990s the Adelaide branch was one of the largest in the world whilst in 2009, there are about 175 members, which includes the Women’s Auxiliary.
The clubrooms are a home base for many affiliated organisations such as the male choir, the women’s auxilliary, the folk dancing group Auseklītis and a library.
The Latvian Church.
The Church of St. Peter was built in 1971 opposite the Latvian Community Centre, eleven years after the establishment of a Church building fund.
This church is a Lutheran church, and its foundation can be traced back to February 1949 when a small group of Latvian migrants met and elected a committee to set-up a Latvian Lutheran congregation in Adelaide.
The congregation was formally founded on April 15, 1949, and the first church service was held in Latvian just over three months later on July 24.
The Rev. Verners Voitkus became the first local Latvian pastor and he presided over early church services in St. Stephen's Lutheran church in Adelaide.
Land in Kingswood was purchased for a church of their own in 1964, but sold in 1968 when land adajcent to the Latvian Community centre in Wayville was bought instead.
The foundation stone was laid in early 1970, and 18 months later the name St Peter was adopted for the church.
The church was consecrated on October 3, 1971.
The Latvian Saturday School.
The Latvian School of Adelaide officially began in 1950 when the then Adelaide Latvian Sunday School, hosted a class of seven students on Saturday mornings.
Held at St. Stephens Church Hall in Wakefield St, Adelaide, under teacher and Principal Margarita Biezaites and with the help of Rev. A Zinnbauer, by the end of 1950 there were 38 students and three teachers.
This increased to about 200 students and 17 teachers by the mid-1950s.
An earlier school, started at the Woodside Reception Centre under Irma Reinfelde, continued until 1952 before amalgamating with the Adelaide school.
There were classes for kindergarten age, grades one to seven and classes for continuing students.
Enrolment costs of 30/- per year covered text and exercise books and school hours were from 9:30am-1pm.
Teaching focused on the Latvian language with reading, grammar, literature, dictation and essay writing.
The curriculum included singing, folk dancing, history, geography, art, philosophy, religion (Lutheran and Roman Catholic) and social activities.
The school moved to larger premises at the Congregational Church Hall, Brougham Place, North Adelaide, and then in 1955 moved to the newly acquired Latvian Community Centre ‘Talava’ at Clark Street, Wayville.
The first major play the school produced "Mija un Paija" was for the 7th Australian Cultural Festival held in Adelaide in 1957; an ambitious task involving many hours of preparations and rehearsals, with young and older students together with Guides, Scouts, parents, and teachers. .
In the 1970'S the new High School, with Dace Darzins as inaugural Principal, provided classes from Year 8 to Matriculation.
Six qualified teachers taught the Latvian language, history and geography, and another 10-12 teachers worked in the Primary School.
The school also tried to cater for those who did not speak Latvian at home by intorducing a library lesson in the
1980s.
Parents were encouraged to spend time with pre-school children in the kindergarten group where only Latvian was
spoken.
In the High School there were now five classes where the school policy was to speak Latvian during the breaks.
Other activities besides academic work, included Scouts, folk-dancing and sport.
By the 1990's the school's board and teachers realised they must change the curriculum to cater for children who had little or any Latvian language abilities.
Old text-books were replaced and more up-to-date teaching methods and aids were introduced, such as flash cards.
Mainstream school picture books were translated.
The school now concentrated on language where children’s vocabulary could be built up as they learnt singing, art and crafts.
In 2002 donated computers with Latvian fonts and a CD of the Latvian history provided an up-to-date resource.
Once the internet was connected the latest information and news from Latvia assisted the students with projects.
However at the end of 2004 only one student graduated from the high school and 2005 was the final year that the Latvian language was offered as a Matriculation subject.
Numbers have now dwindled but the Latvian School is still operating a primary school and adult class.
Saturday mornings from 9:30am-1pm offers structured Latvian language teaching to about 25 students from playgroup to year seven.
Marite Rumpe is the Primary school Principal while Ilga Vasale looks after the adult class.
With three teachers from Latvia and material sent from there to aid students, the school offers a quality course teaching Latvian as a second language.
The school also offers an adult class each Tuesday night focusing on conversational Latvian.
The school is partly funded by the Ethnic Schools Association.
Click here to watch a video about the Adelaide Latvian Saturday School.