What is Simply Sharing Week?

Simply Sharing Week is an opportunity for communities in Australia to work together to learn and act in order to make the world a better place. Each year the injustice in the world is acknowledged and the Simply Sharing program tries to make a difference by focusing educational attention on a particular theme or project.

Simply Sharing suggests a movement towards living simply and sharing what we have. It suggests, too, that we can make a difference to the massive problems of injustice and poverty in the world: by making some sacrifices in our own lives, we can help to bring hope into the lives of others.

Teachers/parish leaders are invited to use the educational activities with their classes in schools/parishes and to encourage participants to be active and involved in raising awareness of global issues of injustice.

The 2010 program focuses on refugees.

At the end of 2008, there were more than 42 million people forcible displaced, including 15.2 million refugees.  In this same year Australia resettled 13,500 refugees. This is less than 1% of the world’s refugees.

Refugees and asylum seekers are often portrayed in a negative light in Australia- sometimes by politicians and the media. Such stereotypes can lead Australians to look at refugees and asylum seekers in a critical way.

Through the information and stories featured in the resources, participants are encouraged to be informed about the issues and then use their knowledge to raise community awareness in their local community.