On Sundays in Australia’s capital, classrooms filled with Bhutanese children become a small bridge to a homeland thousands of kilometres away.
They come to learn a language many hear at home but may rarely use outside it. They learn traditional etiquette, Buddhist prayers and values passed down through generations. More importantly, they are being given a space where being Bhutanese is something they can actively experience rather than simply inherit.
As Australia’s Bhutanese population grows, preserving that connection has become an increasingly important concern for families raising children far from Bhutan.
The Bhutanese Language and Culture School in Canberra is one community response to that challenge. Formally launched in August 2024 after earlier community-led teaching efforts, the school was established amid concerns among parents, religious leaders and other community members that children growing up in Australia could gradually become disconnected from their language and cultural heritage.
What began as an effort to preserve language has developed into a broader programme of cultural learning.
Alongside language lessons, students are introduced to Bhutanese customs and etiquette and to traditional values such as Tha Damtsi, which emphasises loyalty, gratitude and the importance of relationships, and Ley-jumdray, the understanding that actions have consequences.
Buddhist prayers and teachings centred on mindfulness and compassion are also incorporated into the programme, giving children an opportunity to understand some of the spiritual and ethical traditions that have shaped Bhutanese society.
The emphasis, however, is not only on what children can learn from textbooks.
The school has sought to make culture something its students can participate in. Its first Bhutanese Heritage Concert last year brought children before the wider community to perform and celebrate the traditions they had been learning.
The initiative has also become increasingly structured. In March this year, textbooks for all grades were launched, providing teachers and students with a more systematic framework for language and cultural education.
The growth in enrolment suggests that the effort has struck a chord with Bhutanese families in Canberra. From around 100 students two years ago, the school now serves more than 260 children across two campuses. Eighteen teachers conduct classes every Sunday, making the school one of the community’s most significant platforms for transmitting Bhutanese heritage to a generation being raised abroad.
That task is becoming increasingly relevant as thousands of Bhutanese build new lives in Australia. Migration brings new opportunities, but for families settling permanently overseas it also raises a difficult question: what remains of a cultural identity when the next generation grows up far from the country that shaped it?
For Bhutanese parents in Canberra, the answer is not to choose between the two worlds.
Their hope is that children can grow up confidently as part of Australian society while retaining a meaningful relationship with Bhutan — one grounded not merely in family stories or occasional visits, but in language, values and lived cultural practices.
For the children attending the Sunday school, that relationship is being built week by week. Bhutan becomes a language they can speak, a prayer they recognise, a value they understand and a tradition they can perform alongside others their age.
And as the Bhutanese diaspora continues to establish itself across Australia, initiatives such as the Canberra school are attempting to ensure that moving towards a new home does not also mean moving away from the old one.
