Compassion and Care Award
Lynne Reeder • August 18, 2023
Compassionate Ballarat congratulates Keeley Johnson for being awarded the 2023 Compassion and Care Award for her work in helping children with autism and learning difficulties to get access to better educational resources. Through donations, sponsorship, merchandise sales and sausage sizzles, Keeley has been able to provide hundreds of iPads, pre-loaded with tailored education plans to children with autism or an intellectual disability.
Keely also won the Major Award 18-25 category - this is the second year in a row that the winner of the Compassion and Care Award also won the Major Award 18-25.
Keeley was first recognised by Compassionate Ballarat, with her inclusion in the 2022 Compassion Heroes Book (PDF).
Well done Keeley!
The Charter for Compassion recently held its first ever global conference and Compassionate Ballarat was accepted to present. This conference served as a vibrant platform for sharing insights, and actionable ideas to foster a more compassionate and equitable world. You can listen to the presentation on the history and work of Compassionate Ballarat
Do you need help or know someone who does? If you do, then this booklet is for you as it brings together all the food, shelter, support services, and learning services across Ballarat into one place. To make it easier in these cost of living times this booklet provides direct contact details, so in most cases you won’t need to go online. This 2025 version has been updated and so provides many more services than our previous brochure. Let’s look after each other in Ballarat.
Each year the Australian Compassion Council holds a National Day of Compassion, to provide a meaningful opportunity for all Australians to participate in learning about and in practicing compassion. This is the fourth year this National Day has been convened and each National Day has a theme and in 2024 our Theme is Compassion and Deep Connection which featured six facets of deep connection including: Contested spaces - Indigenous Justice - Peace Culture - Repairing Relationships - Innate Connection with our Environment - Dealing with our Distracted World. The National Day started with a launch that included presentations from the CEO of the global Charter for Compassion, Marilyn Turkovich on the Charter’s involvement in the 19th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates – with the Australian Charter Ambassador, Hugh Mackay, AO on Deep Connection in Community - and with the National Lead of the Australian Compassion Council, Dr Lynne Reeder on a Compassionate City project entitled Seeds of Compassion along with some inspiring young students and their compassionate wishes for their city. You can access the video recordings of this day here: