From the CEO – January 2020

Dear Friends,

Australia welcomed in the New Year with a heavy heart. Through the haze, we watched while our beautiful, sacred country burnt. To date we have lost nearly twenty lives, 1000’s of homes, over 5 million acres of land (in NSW alone), and over a billion of our wildlife burnt dead.

For 60,000 years these lands have been continually cared for and nurtured under the custodianship of our First Nations people. Yet a mere 230 years later, we find every state in our country alight, against a backdrop of continued drought, extreme weather and town water supply drying up. If this isn’t a climate crisis, I’m really not sure what else it is.

Our hearts go out to those who have lost their homes and whose communities have been impacted.  We recognise with immense gratitude the thousands of volunteer and paid fire fighters who have worked tirelessly and continue to do so. I hope that 2020 is a year of action, of change realisation.

WAGEC is blessed with such generous supporters whose commitment to social justice is much deeper than mere rhetoric. We could not have achieved what we have in 2019 without your support and dedication.

We know that the incidences of domestic and family violence, of homelessness and the needs for those vulnerable in our community do not get any easier in times of crisis, in fact they get harder. We know that 2020 is going to be a challenging year, but we are here and we are ready. Together, with your ongoing support we can do good.

Let’s make a difference together.