Marlborough Multicultural Centre toasts 20 years of newcomer welcomes

Marcelo Gonzalez knows Marlborough, and Marlburians know him.

As Marlborough Multicultural Centre’s sports and cultural events manager, he weaves community threads into the tapestry that is the Marlborough Multicultural Festival. The 2026 edition comes Saturday (7 March) at Churchill Glade and marks 20 years of both the celebration itself and the organisation behind it.

Marcelo is a football fixture with Rangers AFC Blenheim and a dance instructor of Latin American Folklore styles. Oh, and his wide smile radiates brightly enough to illuminate the sunniest place in New Zealand.

Encapsulating all these elements, the Marlborough Sports Awards recognised him with a 2025 Campbell Gill Bayley’s Community Heroes Award in November.

Marcelo speaks to the impact of internationals on the region – and of the impact of the multicultural centre on them. He arrived from Chile in 2019 with “zero English,” he recalled last week in fluid English. His language skills evolved in large part through socialising with other newcomers at MMC events such as weekly tea on Wednesday mornings.

After a year in Auckland and two in Christchurch, Marcelo returned to Marlborough. Serendipity kept him in Blenheim and ultimately the MMC, located at the southeast corner of Henry and George Streets.

“I just came to here for a morning tea,” Marcelo recalled, just before the first arrivals at last week’s tea. “I had a crash with my car, so I had to say here for a couple of days.  I went to La Ruca [Café], which is a Chilean business, and they told me, ‘Hey, Marcelo, you’re a dancer – maybe you should go to the multicultural centre’.”

Not long after, Marcelo performed at a weekend event. Not long after that, MMC tapped him to work on the 2023 Multicultural Festival. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Unifiers
The interlaced history of the centre and the festival technically traces to 2005. That’s when Shalom Del’Monte-Aberhart organised the precursor to the annual event, a local Race Unity Speech Awards gathering. Around that time, Margaret Western took steps toward co-founding MMC, which she affectionately labels “a melting pot of nationalities”.

Margaret’s professional role at Marlborough District Council – executive assistant to the mayor and the chief executive – brought her into contact with a spectrum of Marlburians. This affinity served her well as the original chair, then original manager, of MMC.

She tried retiring three times from the latter role. Third time being the charm, she finally did last April and now is the group’s community development partner. Margaret remains a presence at teas, the festival and other unifying activities.

“The festival is more than a fun day in the park,” she observed. “It is so important for our newcomer community’s integration into the wider community, to successfully settle.

“It is an opportunity to showcase their own identities – to share and celebrate their own cultures – and equally importantly, it also is an opportunity for the Marlborough community to experience the richness of Marlborough today.”

MMC encompasses four-dozen distinct nationalities and ethnicities; 28 will represent at the festival. Last Wednesday’s tea attracted newcomers from far and wide (Austria, China, Czech Republic, Colombia, the States) as well as long-term residents (from Kiribati, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand).

Margaret’s successor, Sigrun Steinhagen, hails from Germany. She notes the alignment of the festival with Race Relations Day – that falls on 21 March, in the midst of harvest.

“The underlying message is really unity and diversity, which is our tagline,” Sigrun said. “Having everybody in the community enjoy each others’ cultures, we do it through food and dance and song and fun.”

Coda
Ann Turnbull volunteers at the centre. During introductions at last Wednesday’s tea, she called the get-together “the highlight of my week.”

Moments earlier, Ann explained that “one of our focuses” for this staple event is “to help newcomers with their English – and to help them make friends.”
“And to support newcomers,” Margaret added, “in various different ways.”

One example: Carmen Munoz Ramirez and Lisbeth Acevedo, accompanied by son Zair Andrews-Acevedo, discovered that they share Colombian heritage. They happily chatted away at tea.

Another example: Marcelo. The MMC staffer sipped yerba mate, a South American tea, while catching up with attendees. He is a centre success story.

His story has an endpoint, though, and it arrives imminently. In a salute to Marcelo, Margaret let the group know he is heading back to Chile on Tuesday. So, Saturday’s festival will be his last barring a reversal of his immigration misfortunes.

Marcelo cherishes his time – and evolution – here.

“I didn’t speak much,” he said of his arrival, “but the people here are very friendly. They understand that you are from overseas. I started to practice my English at the morning teas, then by myself.

“I love this small city.”