Caritas Australia Live on The Today Show
Pancakes for Project Compassion
Paige and Tara at making pancakes at the Project Compassion 2025 Office Launch
Pancake mix with Project Compassion Boxes
We're on TV!
Caritas Australia and St Mary’s Cathedral College are coming together for a special live broadcast on The Today Show to launch Project Compassion 2025!
Join us as we celebrate Shrove Tuesday with pancakes, fun activities, and a powerful message of compassion and giving.
Watch us on The Today Show live from 5:40 am to 8:36 am on March 4
(Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day)
What is Project Compassion?
For 60 years, Project Compassion has supported communities worldwide through education, clean water, sustainable farming, and social programs. This year, we’re highlighting real stories of transformation, like Toefuata'iga in Samoa, whose school now has access to clean water thanks to Project Compassion donations.
Principal Ada (right) and a group of students including Toefuata’iga (centre), 13, smile to camera in a Samoan primary school class. Photo: Caritas Australia.
How You Can Get Involved in Project Compassion
Toefuata’iga writes on a chalkboard in a primary school classroom in Samoa. Photo: Caritas Australia.
Donate to Project Compassion
$100 can provide water tank maintenance training, ensuring safe water in Samoa so that children can stay healthy and attend school without disruption.
Toefuata’iga fills up her water bottle from a Samoan primary school’s drinking water tank. Photo: Caritas Australia.
Fundraise for Project Compassion
There are so many ways you can unite your workplace, school, parish and community - your fundraising will create waves of change around the world.
General Questions:
The first national appeal for overseas aid was held in 1965. This initiative drew inspiration from Lenten appeals at a Parish and diocesan level in Adelaide the two previous years. The Australian Bishops agreed to a proposal for a nationwide appeal while in Rome for Vatican II in late 1964.
A pastoral letter was drafted by the Episcopal Committee for Overseas Relief (the forerunner of Caritas), to be signed by each bishop, calling on all Catholic families to donate any money saved in Lent through self-denial to poverty relief. That year, over £50,000 was raised.
Roy Boylan, president of the Sydney Diocesan committee for Catholic Overseas Relief, proposed calling the Sydney appeal Project Compassion in mid-1965. The name was adopted nationally and in 1966 the national Lenten appeal was rolled out as Project Compassion.
Project Compassion is Caritas Australia’s main annual fundraising campaign. It mobilises Australians to raise much-needed funds to help alleviate poverty, promote justice and uphold dignity in the most vulnerable and marginalised communities in the world.
Held during Lent, the six-week period before Easter, Catholic schools, Parishes, and the wider Australian public participate in a diverse range of fundraising activities and events to support Caritas Australia’s programs both overseas and here with our First Australian partners.
Project Compassion is an extraordinary demonstration of the faith, empathy and generosity of our supporters. It is the lifeblood of Caritas Australia; without it, we could not do the vital work that we do.
The theme of Project Compassion is Unite Against Poverty this Lent. This year, we focus on the stories of three remarkable, resilient people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Samoa and Vietnam.Â
Each of these stories demonstrates the powerful impact that each one of us can have on alleviating poverty. Together, we can create lasting change for people living in some of the most vulnerable and low-income regions in the world.
Along with your generous support, this program is also supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).
