Walking together for freedom

Across the country, Australians attended Walk Together events in the name of freedom for refugees, migrants and all people.

World Vision and Walk Together 2017

On Saturday 21 October 2017, approximately 10,000 people participated in Welcome to Australia’s annual Walk Together event in capital cities and regional centres across the country. Walk Together celebrates Australia’s diversity and encourages a welcoming, compassionate and fair society. 

This year’s event focused on freedom for refugees, migrants and all people. Freedom to belong, to be yourself, and to hope.   

World Vision staff and supporters took part in the event as part of our work to assist displaced people and refugees. 

The greatest humanitarian challenge of our time

Right now, more than 65 million people around the world, including children, are displaced from their homes. They’re fleeing famine, war, climate change or disaster. Some are displaced within their own country, while others are forced to cross borders and become refugees. There are more displaced people now than at any other time in human history.

Our Chief Advocate Tim Costello spoke at the Walk Together event in Sydney, calling for Australia to welcome more displaced people into our communities.

“We are celebrating in Walk Together who we are,” he said. “We have been an immigrant nation and yet we have this strange uncertainty and ambivalence toward immigration and particularly refugees.”

Currently, developing countries host 90 percent of the world’s refugees.

World Vision is calling for an increase in Australia’s humanitarian intake to 42,000 people per year. This would only represent a small fraction of overall migration to Australia, but would better reflect our ability to provide a fair go as a wealthy, industrialised nation.

“We are an immigrant nation that must walk together ...,” Tim said.