Australia: February 12

Today was a work day at the Caritas Australia office in Sydney.  The three of us guest speakers were introduced to staff, welcomed at a morning tea, and then received  media training for dealing with interviews.


Psyche Mae brought her luggage with her when she waited in the lobby for our ride to arrive this morning because she was scheduled to head to Brisbane at the end of the day.
We spent the day at the Caritas Australia headquarters, quite a large open-office facility.
While we waited between appointments with various staff, we worked on our presentations in an empty conference room. Here Janak Sharma (L) and Psyche Mae rework their talks which will start tomorrow.
In mid-morning all the staff had a morning tea to welcome us and to allow us to meet the people who help channel Caritas money to our projects. Here Paul O’Callaghan introduces Janak.
Charlie was asked to explain a little about his work with the deaf community in Cambodia.
A bit later it was time to prepare a lunch for all the Caritas staff who work with Southeast Asia.
All of us visitors were surprised at the size of the Southeast Asia group within Caritas. Caritas Australia is a large organization supporting programs with the poor in 27 countries.
After several interviews, both on video and for a podcast, we three speakers were herded outside for promotional pictures with a life-sized animated Project Compassion donation box.