The theme for the Seeds of Justice conference was ‘Opening the Doors of Mercy – people seeking asylum and refugees in Australia. We were fortunate enough to hear from speakers Sally Morgan from the Hope CoOperative, Angela Scarafilo from Young Mercy Links, and Asma Mohammad Rahim who has experienced being a refugee herself.

It was a great experience and it gave us the opportunity to understand how refugees and asylum seekers are within the local community, whilst giving us an insight into the challenges, discrimination and hardships that refugees and asylum seekers face on a daily basis- just to have the basic rights and freedoms that every human deserves.

During the conference, we were asked to come up with some school initiatives, and we came up with some short term and long term projects:

Short term:

• Making weekly school bulletin posts with facts about refugees and asylum seekers (for example the difference between refugees and asylum seekers, what we can do to help support refugees/asylum seekers/immigrants)
• Mercy and Mission leaders can make a video for staff and students to watch regarding awareness about refugees and asylum seekers, and teach some simple phrases in other languages such as Tamil, Arabic, Karen, Pashto and Persian.

Long term:

• We would like to organise a book launch for the Shape of Hope book which launches in 2022, with funds going towards the Hope Co Operative
• Celebrate Refugee Week by organising an initiative for the day
• Raise funds for the Living Support Fund- to help refugee/asylum seekers
• Visual installation in the Innovation Precinct- origami with hopeful messages