Desperate 5-year-olds work 12 hour days  
Millions of women and children are performing back-breaking labour in brickfields across India for about $1.30 a day. Aussie journalist Elouise Hahn, who spent three months in Kolkata filming a documentary on the issue, tells Grazia it can’t go on.

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Discovering the art of volunteering in the remote Northern Territory  

Deidre Black shares her experiences as a volunteer at the Merrepen Arts Centre through Mary Ward International Australia (MWIA), the justice and development arm of the Loreto Sisters which supports the festival host.

The Merrepen Arts & Sports Festival is an event held annually to celebrate cultural pride and indigenous knowledge.

Find out more about volunteering with MWIA

MWIA projects

Article by Catherine Marshall

Loreto teacher wins Prime Ministers Prize  
Dr Jane Wright, teacher at Loreto College Marryatville in South Australia, has won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools.

Loreto convent education led to Nobel Peace Prize  
Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who started out by paying women a few shillings to plant trees and went on to become the first African woman to win a Nobel peace prize, has died of cancer in Nairobi. She was 71.

Maathai was born in the village of Ihithe, near Nyeri, in the central highlands of Kenya. Her parents were subsistence farmers from the Kikuyu tribe. She was the eldest of six children, and graduated in 1959 from Loreto Limiru Girls' High School run by Catholic nuns.

Mary Ward volunteers at Merrepen arts festival, Daly River, NT  
In late August, nine Mary Ward International Australia (MWIA) volunteers journeyed to Daly River to help with the 24thMerrepen Arts Festival at the request of Merrepen Arts Centre manager and artists.

The Loreto Sisters, through Susan Daily ibvm have a special connection with the community at Daly River. Susanis much loved by the Naiuyu Community. As ‘artist in residence’she teaches craft techniques such as screen printing, lino block printing and batik production and also works with aboriginal communities at Balgo, Santa Teresa and Wadeye.

MWIA's NGV Vienna Art & Design event a great success   
Friends and colleagues of Mary Ward International Australia gathered in Federation Court of the National Gallery of Victoria to enjoy breakfast followed by an introduction to the NGV Winter Masterpieces Vienna: Art & Design by Professor William M Johnston.

The role of a prison chaplain  
What do I consider are essential aspects of the ministry of a Catholic chaplain within a women's prison? By Marg Finlay ibvm

Special viewing at the National Gallery of Victoria  
This Sunday, September 18, Mary Ward International Australia (MWIA), the office for justice and development projects of the IBVM Loreto Sisters, invites readers to the National Gallery of Victoria for a special viewing of Melbourne Winter Masterpieces Vienna: Art & Design.

Time out with Sr Margaret  
Margaret Mary Flynn ibvm talks to Kairos Catholic Journal about her new position as Provincial for the Loreto Sisters within Australia and South East Asia.

New Loreto website launched  
Overview of the new Loreto Australia website on OPW's Women Matter e-news.