Street coup for Australian Kfarsghab Association
Bookmark thisTHERE’S a Parramatta Rd in the Lebanese village of Kfarsghab and now Parramatta is set to return the favour.
Parramatta Council is considering renaming Amos St, east of Good St, Kfarsghab Pl in recognition of the ties our city has with the mountain hamlet in northern Lebanon.
That part of Amos St has been home to the Australian Kfarsghab (pronounced ``far-sorb’‘) Association since it bought the old Two Blues clubhouse in July.
But it was not the association which asked for the name change, although it wholeheartedly supports the idea.
Cr Chiang Lim has long been an admirer of the Lebanese community which he and others recognise as having made a huge contribution to Parramatta.
He told the Advertiser he saw great similarities in the Lebanese migrant story to his own story of settling in Australia from Singapore.
When Cr Lim visited Kfarsghab to check up on the Parramatta Rd sign adorning the main street last year, he fell in love with Lebanon and the villages which provided so many migrants to Australia over 125 years.
``I was really wanting to do this in memory of Joe Barakat (the late former Parramatta councillor, one of the first Lebanese Australian to be elected to the council in the 1990s) who had unsuccessfully tried to have Onslow St renamed Kfarsghab St but it didn’t get off the ground,’’ Cr Lim said.
But Mr Barakat, who died in 2001, did succeed in having Kfarsghab’s main street named Parramatta Rd, in 1995. Now, Cr Lim feels it is time to return the favour. He received unanimous support from fellow councillors to put the name change forward to the Geographic Names Board.
Source: Parramatta Advertiser