Addi Road Fiesta: 50 years strong in the community

Well over 3,000 people attended the Addi Road Fiesta on Saturday 17 October. The event celebrated our community centre’s 50th birthday.

Addi Road was born back in 1976 in Marrickville thanks to grassroots lobbying from across Sydney’s Inner West that would mark the centre out as the birthplace of multiculturalism in Australia.

The depth of this love and connection was more than evident on our Saturday at our fiesta. Something that could be measured by much more than just the huge crowd numbers in attendance.

After a week of hard rain, the sun was out – and a genuine brightness and warmth prevailed in every way. People rolled through the fiesta enjoying the food and craft stalls, and the wildly varied entertainment happening across our two stages on site.

Some of what was offer on the day included Senegalese drumming from Yacou Mbaye; the art of medieval fighting recreated in full costume by The Society for Creative Anachronism; Latin American folk music from Justo Diaz and Papalote; the Hoa Mai dance group; the Australian Martial Arts Junior XTreme team; a dose of youthful hip-hop energy from our own Addi Sounds crew; and psychedelic rock band The Deal blasting out a rousing set of Dylan covers at the end while a harlequin appeared in glittering white to strut his way through the crowd.

It all began in the morning with a smoking ceremony by Tarunna Sebastian and a beautiful Acknowledgment of Country by Auntie Kathy Dodd Farrawell.

Our guest and old friend, the Governor General, Sam Mostyn, then took to the podium to recognise all of Addi Road’s work – from the food relief and food rescue operations at our two food pantries through to our weekly ‘Wednesday Night Lights’ event and our regular Christmas campaign known as ‘Hampers of Hope’.

Sam went even deeper into the work we also do across arts and culture, community and mental health, noting how programs as varied as Addi Sounds and Addi Moves, and the Addi Road Writers Festival, were integrated into a compassionate and creative web of activities.

This is something Addi Road itself has cited as a ‘bread and roses’ approach to community work: care and inspiration the twin ambitions we aim for every day along with answering basic needs and providing essential services during the increasingly difficult era of poverty and inequality we find ourselves in. A city closing in; an Addi Road that makes space, literally, and critically, for people to stay positive and hopeful.

Sam noted all this in the most personal of ways, speaking about her own involvement with Addi Road long before she ever became Governor-General. She referred back to the days she spent here pitching in as a volunteer to pack emergency food hampers at Addi Road during the Covid era. It was a reminder of what a real community organisation represents when the unexpected and difficult affects us suddenly.

The bigger story being told was ultimately one of how generous and compassionate people can be under pressure; as well as how a place like Addi Road becomes essential to holding this humanitarian line for everyone. A backstop, and even a fort of sorts for the community to gather in: a site, a safe place, that exists in the physical and real world, that can help people to resist the worst of whatever is happening, as well as be a foundation for creativity, social justice and even joy on a multiplicity of levels.

The thousands attending the day at Addi Road Fiesta 2026 were ample evidence of this. The good energy and community-driven entertainment a continuing realisation of the original vision for the centre back in 1976.

A vision that then Whitlam-era Minister for Immigration, Al Grassby, drew on to craft the Federal Government’s policies for a multicultural Australia that have flourished in the half-a-century since. A vision first inspired by Addi Road’s community advocates and activists who were weaving together the reality at street level. A place Grassby would visit and describe enthusiastically at the time as “one small world”.

Other speakers on the day of the Addi Road Fiesta included Jo Haylen, the NSW Labor Member for Summer Hill; followed later by Bryan Brown and Craig Foster (who really should have their own TV show!); and, of course, Addi Road CEO Rosanna Barbero.

Unique to all their speeches was the same sense of personal connection that distinguished Sam Mostyn’s address.

Copies of our new book – ‘THE ROAD TO ADDI’, a kind-of family photo album and skip-across-our-history through essays, memoir notes and documentary images – brought even further detail to the Addi Road journey from 1976 till now.

2SER and Radio Skid Row meanwhile combined forces to do a live-to-air broadcast. The program host remarked on the sheer pleasure of people watching while sitting there at the Addi Road Fiesta, “a fashion parade where every single person looks different. I am just loving seeing all the people and how each of them dresses!”

On the day, those present were indeed proof of the orginal vision and idealism that ‘invented’ Addi Road.

Our wonderful volunteers and staff, our many friends, the artists on site and the musicians who come here to play for us, our corporate supporters and donors, all part of a diverse community … the one small world we love, the one small world that still shapes us.

We are glad you joined us to celebrate. And with your help, we hope to stay here and thrive for another fifty years.