Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I was privileged to visit B'nai B'rith in Kensington in my electorate and met with some of their fantastic volunteers to hear about their Courage for Care program. Courage for Care is an outreach program by B'nai B'rith, the world's oldest Jewish service organisation, which aims to inform Australians of the dangers and prejudice of discrimination.

Since 1999, Courage to Care in New South Wales has run a travelling educational exhibition inspired by the many stories of rescue and courage displayed by non-Jews who saved or helped Jews during the Holocaust. A unique feature of all Courage to Care programs is a session with a living historian, a survivor from the Holocaust, who shares their positive story of their rescue and survival and who explains the support he or she was given by others. I was fortunate to meet with Ernie Freelander, who told how he and his mother escaped the concentration camps due to the humanity of a German soldier and were the only two in their family to survive. The program celebrates the people who had the courage to care, ordinary people whose acts were extraordinary in bravery and impact.

Courage to Care in New South Wales is run by a team of nearly 100 volunteers and, with the help of a Kingsford Smith volunteers grant, they have been able to support the teaching of more antidiscrimination programs in our community. I would like to thank and congratulate all the volunteers from Courage to Care who help individuals and people in our communities stand up to prejudice.