Hope for a better world

Carla Chung, ACRATH’s migrant support worker, is one of the Ambassadors of Hope you can hear when you join the global online Marathon of Prayer on Friday, February 7, as part of the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking. The Marathon of Prayer starts at different times around the globe, including a 9.30pm start on February 7 in Melbourne and Sydney. Find the time in your region here.

Carla Chung pictured recording her contribution to the Marathon of Prayer
The 2025 theme is Ambassadors of Hope: Together Against Human Trafficking. Pope Francis in 2015 designated 8th February, the feast of St Josephine Bakhita, as the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking. Talitha Kum, the network of Catholic Religious women and men and their collaborators against Human Trafficking, is tasked with coordinating a group of partner organisations to prepare and facilitate this day.
St Josephine Bakhita, who was born in 1869 in Sudan, knew the pain and sorrow of losing her freedom. She was taken by slave traders when she was seven and was bought and sold many times in the following decade. Taken to Italy by a family, who ‘owned’ her, she met the Canossian Daughters of Charity, became a Catholic and joined the Canossian congregation. She died in 1947 and was canonized in 2000.
People around the world are invited to join in this prayer marathon, in their own region. Annette Arnold rsj is Talitha Kum’s Oceania Regional Coordinator and has led the Oceania team’s contribution to the opening section of the online prayer, which highlights the relationship of climate change to exploitation in the Pacific Island Nations.
Carla Chung works closely with migrant workers from Timor Leste and the Pacific. She said ‘hope’ for a better life for their communities motivates many of the migrant workers she supports each day.
“Most migrant workers who come to Australia, they have a big hope to make a change in their lives, not just for themselves, but hope to change for a better life for their families. This will be to help finances for a brother or sister, or children or wife or parents while they work here,” Carla said.
Carla said she works closely with workers to advocate for them and to make sure they know their rights, especially regarding wages and other employment conditions. One of Carla’s hopes is that communities, particularly parishes around Australia, will offer support and friendship to workers who come to pray, to ensure they are not alone.
There are many ways to celebrate the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking and many resources are available here on the ACRATH website, including:
- Time and dates of the prayer marathon in your region
- Links to join the prayer marathon
- Poster to promote the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking
- Prayers for the event
- Actions to take to prevent human trafficking
Annette said she hoped many people would come together to mark this important event.
“I read these words of Aussie journalist Stan Grant: ‘Hope is the oxygen in our blood; resentment is its poison’. I pray that, as we endeavour to be Ambassadors of Hope this year, that we help nourish each other’s hopeful blood supply! Together we continue, step by step, to free this world of exploitation and human trafficking,” Annette said.