As we approach Refugee Week 2025 (15-21 June), we pause to reflect on this year’s powerful theme: Finding Freedom: Diversity in Community. It is a reminder that freedom is not simply the absence of persecution or fear, but the presence of belonging, identity, and opportunity – all nurtured in the embrace of a compassionate community.

Refugee Week is a time to honour the courage, resilience, and strength of people who have been forced to flee their homelands. It is also a time to examine how we, as Australians, can better welcome and walk alongside people who have newly arrived in our country, ensuring they are not only safe, but celebrated.

In the spirit of this year’s theme, the Josephite Action Group is proud to announce a heart-warming initiative to close Refugee Week 2025, a Welcome Weekend, held in the serene surrounds of the Royal National Park from 20-22 June. This weekend will offer families who are newly arrived to Australia a space of healing, joy, and connection – a gentle step toward finding freedom in community.

Over the course of three days, families will gather in nature, away from the noise and pressures of life, and be welcomed with open arms by volunteers and friends. Shared meals, storytelling, games, and guided bushwalks will foster moments of friendship and celebration. It is an invitation to exhale, to feel seen, and to be embraced not in spite of one’s difference, but because of it.

The Josephite Action Group – rooted in the spirit of Mary MacKillop and the Sisters of Saint Joseph – believes that community is enriched when every voice is heard and every culture honoured. Through this Welcome Weekend, we will aim to create a living tapestry of diversity, where freedom is not found in solitude, but in solidarity.

For some families, this weekend will be their first experience of true connection in a new land – a chance to build friendships that last beyond the event, to share stories and traditions, and to begin to write a new chapter not as outsiders, but as cherished members of Australian society.

In a world too often divided by fear, initiatives like these remind us of what truly binds us: share humanity, dignity, and the deep desire to belong. This Refugee Week, let us not only celebrate freedom – let us create it, together.

Emilia Nicholas
Josephite Justice Network