50 Our supporters Refugee Week 2018 During Refugee Week 2018, SDN ran a nappy drive campaign across all of our children’s education and care centres in support of the Asylum Seekers Centre (ASC) at Newtown. All SDN families and staff were invited to donate nappies for use by families at the ASC. SDN has developed a strong relationship with the ASC through our Child and Parenting Support (CaPS) program based at Parramatta, which works with migrant and refugee families. SDN approached the ASC to ask what they needed most, and the answer was nappies for the children. Many of these children are suffering from trauma as a result of persecution and human rights abuses in the countries from which their families have fled. In 2017 ASC cared for more than 2,500 people seeking asylum, including 725 children. SDN delivered more than 13,000 nappies to the Asylum Seekers Centre. ASC volunteer Jamie (pictured left with SDN CEO Kay Turner) took delivery of the nappies and was overwhelmed by the generosity of the families and staff of SDN. ‘Families helping families’ Christmas giving Last Christmas, instead of giving a gift, SDN families were invited to recognise and thank the educators at their child’s centre by donating to SDN’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholarships program. SDN’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Early Childhood Scholarships help to reduce financial barriers for Aboriginal families, enabling them to access quality education for their children in the years before school. This was the first time we’ve run the ‘families helping families’ Christmas campaign, and we raised $7,580, which was more than enough to fund one entire scholarship. SDN’s Scholarships program began 11 years ago and in that time we’ve issued 99 scholarships. The scholarships are funded entirely by donation, so we’re hoping to make this an annual event. It was wonderful that families were so enthusiastic about thanking their child’s educators in a way that also supported other families, and our staff were delighted to be acknowledged publicly for their work. We thank the families and staff of SDN for their support and generosity.