Courage

Courage to Care is an outreach program of B'nai B'rith NSW. B'nai B'rith is the world's oldest Jewish Service organisation, with a presence in 50 countries and headquarters in Washington DC. In Australia, a large part of its work focuses on the advocacy and promotion of human rights and social justice. In 1992, inspired by the many stories of rescue and courage of non-Jews who saved or helped Jews during the Holocaust, the Raoul Wallenberg Unit of B'nai B'rith Victoria mounted the first Courage to Care exhibition in the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne, Victoria. This was in a joint initiative with the Jewish Holocaust Centre. Courage to Care VIC still run an exhibition and school incursion program throughout Victoria today. Since 1998, the exhibition was also taken up by B'nai B'rith NSW as a travelling exhibition. Subsequently, an education program was developed to accompany the exhibition. For the past 15 years, Courage to Care (NSW) has run a travelling exhibition with an integrated education program that is delivered in New South Wales, Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory, and Western Australia. The exhibition celebrates the people who had the courage to care - ordinary people, whose acts were extraordinary in their bravery and impact. It tells the story of individuals who, in the darkest moments of the 20th century, chose to stand up and confront discrimination and injustice, often risking their own lives and sometimes also those of their loved ones, to save others. Their stories are an enduring example of the power of the individual to make a difference, and a poignant reminder that it is our own choices that determine if we remain bystanders, or become 'upstanders' who take positive action in the face of discrimination, prejudice and bullying in our everyday lives.