Our CEO Julie Edwards sent staff a video today to check in and send her wishes to all of us during this very difficult time. You can watch Julie's message here.

Julie's video follows the latest CEO Communication, which provides organisational updates on our strategic directions, advocacy, events and more. It also includes a fitting poem for this time by Mary Oliver that reminds us that the breaking of our hearts can be a breaking open to others and the world. You can read the Communication here.

Action for Afghanistan

As many of you know, our organisation co-convenes with Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) the Catholic Alliance for People Seeking Asylum (CAPSA), a campaign that advocates for more effective and humane treatment of people seeking asylum.

Over the past weeks, we have seen the situation facing people in Afghanistan go from bad to worse.

While the Federal Government has undertaken to allocate at least 3,000 places for Afghans within the current humanitarian intake, the need is dire and immediate, and a special additional intake is required. CAPSA and its supporters are raising their voices to urge the Federal Government to:

• Commit to an intake of an additional 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan, focused on those most at risk
• Make immediate arrangements to bring the families of refugees from Afghanistan to Australia.
• Grant permanent protection to all people from Afghanistan in Australia on temporary protection visas or currently seeking asylum.

We encourage you to be part of the voice of CAPSA, through one or both of the following ways:

1. Send a letter to your local Member of Parliament directly through the CAPSA website at capsa.org.au/afghanistan. On this website you will find a form letter that you can easily edit or send as it is. By entering your postcode, you will be able to send it to your local MP.
2. At www.actionforafghanistan.com.au you will be able to sign a petition along with thousands of other Australians.

We remain in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan who need our compassion and kindness now.

Artful Dodgers benefit concert tonight!

Our Artful Dodgers Studios, a much-loved facility in Collingwood where young people living with difficult circumstances create art and music, is hosting an online concert tonight on Zoom.

The live event will include performances by up-and-coming Studios artists, as well as Australian music icons Paul Kelly, and Vika and Linda Bull.

In the last 27 years and with the support of experienced artists and mentors, hundreds of young people have unlocked their creative potential and developed critical job and life skills.

The event is happening this evening from 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM AEST.

Registration is required.

Dare to be Different forum 2021

Honouring the space between no longer and not yet... a focus on Indigenous incarceration.

The Xavier Social Justice Network is hosting a free online event tomorrow evening from 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM AEST where guests will hear from:

• An Indigenous person, with the lived experience of incarceration, sharing their story
• Leeane Carter, the State-wide Community Justice Programs Leader, from the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service
• Craig Frean from our Jesuit Social Services Northern Territory team, working with Indigenous people who have experienced incarceration

Julian Butler SJ, who is one of our Board Members, will be MC for the night.

Registration is required.

Jesuit Social Services celebrates Wear it Purple Day

Last Friday 27 August marked Wear it Purple Day 2021 and teams around the organisation showed their support for LGBTIQA+ young people by, well, wearing purple!

The theme of this year's Wear it Purple Day was 'start the conversation, keep it going'. The Advocacy and Strategic Communications team together watched a short video that includes reflections made by LGBTIQA+ young people on their experiences and vision for a better world to help us start our conversation. 

These young people are part of the LGBTIQA+ Youth Advisory Group for a study called Writing Themselves in 4 – the largest ever study on the experiences that LGBTIQA+ young people aged 14-21 in Australia have had with education, homelessness, harassment, assault, mental health, community connections and more. 

If you would like to watch this powerful video, you can do so here.

If you would like to find out more about the study, you can do so here.

Our CEO Julie Edwards spoke to Al Jazeera about the importance of safe and secure housing for people exiting the prison system. “If someone hasn’t got stable, safe housing, it’s really hard to do the other series of interventions you are trying to do,” she says. Read the article here.

We have called on the Federal Government to act immediately, including an immediate increase of Australia’s intake of humanitarian refugees, to protect Afghan refugees. We also support a guarantee of permanent visas for Afghans already in the country under temporary protection or those who are having their status currently processed. Read more at Catholic Outlook.

We are supporting the new Christians United for Afghanistan campaign to urge our Federal Government to make a just and compassionate commitment to help the most vulnerable Afghan people. Read more about the campaign here.

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