Schools Theme - 'Fair Play Today'

The theme of Project Compassion 2007 is 'Fair Play Today' and it coincides with the 40th year anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio – On the Development of Peoples.

This was an extraordinary document for its time and is just as relevant today as it was in 1967 when it was first published. The overarching message of Populorum Progressio is that we all have a role to play in empowering people to help themselves break free from poverty and be “architects of their own progress.” However, this can only happen if we act justly and “play fairly”.

This is why each of the stories in the school Project Compassion kits explores a different tenet of Populorum Progressio , as outlined below, and links in with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Take a visual journey through ten key messages of Populorum Progressio.

Download a PowerPoint about Populorum Progressio and the work of Caritas Australia (1MB PowerPoint)

Among our many projects, Caritas Australia would like to help:

The people of Bangladesh “striving for fuller growth” through fish farming and other income generation activities (MDGs 1-7)
The people of Timor-Leste in rebuilding their lives and where “development [is] the new name for peace” (MDGs 1-7)
The people of South Africa as they determine ways to respond to HIV and AIDS and seek to “challenge discrimination” associated with the disease (MDGs 1-7)
The people of Peru as they develop their crop, cattle and sheep production and “foster the development of every person” (MDGs 1 -7)
The people of Vietnam through income generation and other educational programs, where the people themselves value education and acknowledge that “lack of education is as serious as lack of food” (MDGs 1-7)
Empower Indigenous communities to be “architects of their own progress”(MDG 1)

Building a just world involves standing in solidarity with the oppressed. It also involves “Fair Play” in the way we treat ourselves, each other and our global family. If the vision of Populorum Progressio is to be truly realised we need to practice and promote “Fair Play” in all that we do. Let us rise to this challenge and insist upon “Fair Play Today”, “Fair Play” which cannot be delayed.