I am very pleased to be here today for the launch of this interesting project that aims to connect the Spanish speaking community with the Victorian students of Spanish, and I am sure it will enjoy great success.

There are two aspects of this project that I would like to underline: first, the generosity of this group of students that are willing to devote their free time to achieving a better connection between the many communities that have found in Australia a second home. The multicultural vocation of the country is well exemplified but an initiative such as this Co-operation 21 will afford the Spanish speaking community a better knowledge of the other communities that make up this nation, as well as offering the students that voluntarily participate in it a deeper knowledge of the many aspects of a community that is multicultural in itself, one cemented by a common language but that expresses itself in many accents, intonations and rhythms. The language that was born in the dry, austere plains of Castille became adapted to a new reality, a new horizon of mountains and jungles, gigantic rivers and awe inspiring deserts. In the process, the language grew new skins, reflected new sensitivities and became the tool for the expression of other sentiments. The tongue that Cervantes used to portray the adventures of a mad and generous hidalgo had to fight the gigantic realities of the New World and learn the rhythms of the vast winds that agitated the windmills from across the seas. From the Inca Garcilaso to Jorge Luis Borges, Spanish became the vehicle to describe the passions and avatars of a new hemisphere, keeping a channel of communication open across the Atlantic.

But a language is not only its past, it's Literature to its history. These project rests on the assumption that a language is a living  being, a sort of sound map of reality, and it is through the interaction with speakers of a language that one learns the intricacies of a  way of speaking that becomes, thus, also a way of living.  Grammar, the bookish study of a language, is only the scaffolding that holds together a way of looking at the world, and it is this gaze upon the world, this “Mirada” that a project such as Co-operation 21 aims to absorb, preserve and adapt. By adding Australian accents to a language that is already both European and American, this project will ensure a better understanding of Australian realities for Spanish speaking communities and a transmission of the thoughts, values and tones that the different communities brought here.