Giving or helping, your support is needed this season: 'I want to share genuine love, care'

The festive season can be tough for vulnerable families but this year, it's proving extra difficult with increased cost of living pressures. Charities are lending a hand, preparing hampers and meals for those struggling to make ends meet.

Volunteers at St Vincent de Paul in Sydney (SBS)

Key Points

• According to the Salvation Army's most recent survey, one in seven Australian families now can't afford basics like food or petrol.
• There are almost 60,000 registered charities in Australia.
• With increased demand for help comes an increase in demand for volunteers like Myrvee Ortega.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

Filipino Christmas giving 20122022 FINAL.mp3

Filipino Christmas giving 20122022 FINAL.mp3

09:45

Charities

Across Australia, there are almost 60,000 registered charities. This festive season, many are giving away food packs and other basic needs.

It's not just food that's being distributed to thousands who would otherwise go without.

Many also give clothes and toys in particular to children.

Just like the charity where the former international student and now 482 visa holder Mryvee Ortega is volunteering.

'Gifts for kids'

"Every Christmas, Barnardos Australia have this what they call Gifts for Kids."

"My kids are my inspiration that's why I volunteer to help disadvantaged kids in Australia. I want to show them the genuine love and care that my two boys are luckily experiencing from my family even if I'm away and have left them in the Philippines." Credit: SBS Filipino/A.Violata

"Prior to the pandemic, volunteers would work at what we call Santa Workshop. It's a huge area where all the donations, gifts are brought and we sort the items according to the appropriate age," shares Myrvee.

'Gifts for Kids' is just one of Barnardos Australia's Christmas projects. But throughout the year, they help families keep children and young people safe and stop the cycle of disadvantage.

"As a mother who left my two lovely boys, they're my inspiration. As we are lucky given that I left them in the Philippines, we have my family, my brother and my sister-in-law who look after them and treat them as their own," says the emotional mother of two.

Genuine love and care

In her volunteering, Ortega's inspiration is her two children who she left behind in the Philippines when she moved to Australia as an international student.

"My children have not experienced the suffering that I see in the children we try to reach out to through the charity organisation I volunteer for."

Many of the children beneficiaries of Barnados Australia's projects have experienced trauma, abuse and neglect.

"They have their own family with them and yet physically they were neglected. That's why I want to show them genuine love and care the same way my children are able to experience through my family."