Pancakes with a side of global justice

ALICIA S. COOK

A FLURRY of flour and spatulas took over Pall Mall last week as members of the Catholic charity Caritas cooked up a feast for Pancake Tuesday.

Over 1000 pancakes were handed over with a smile and a Caritas brochure with the aim of raising awareness for the organisation’s projects.

Kerry Stone, the Sandhurst diocese coordinator for Caritas Australia, said she pulled the idea for Pancake Day from her head 25 years ago and since then it had helped the charity become known in the region.

“It means that they know Caritas Australia as the agency to turn to whether there’s a crisis in the world and there’s been so many this year,” she said.

Caritas Australia part of a network of 200 Caritas branches globally that work for international aid and development.

The new campaign, known as Project Compassion, was the talking point of last week’s cook up and is aimed at raising awareness of global inequities by sharing the stories of people who have been helped by Caritas.

“This year we’re focusing on Ronita from the Phillipines, Leaia from Samoa, and Memory from Malawi,” said Ms Stone.

“Project Compassion is probably the largest campaign for aid development across Australia and last year raised 10 million dollars.”

The Sandhurst diocese oversees parts of north-east and central Victoria, an area Ms Stone acknowledged is generous with donations.

“We’re pretty amazing in this north, north-eastern region in that we raised half a million, well over half a million last year,” she said.

But the amount of money raised is not what Ms Stone intends to be the focal point of the campaign, instead she said she wants to raise consciousness of what actions can be taken to help global poverty.

“If we tell the stories and make others aware, people’s reaction is to go ‘oh, what can I do about that?’” she said.

“We can respond with money and that helps but we can also respond in this very globalised and interconnected world of ours, with a lot of other activities and campaigning.”