Julia leaves her mark

Julia Trimboli discovered the injustices of human trafficking a long time ago. She was working at Catholic Health Australia and heard about a group of ACRATH people visiting Parliament House in Canberra advocating for policy change for people who had been trafficked into Australia. Ever since finding out that people around the globe, including Australia, are living and working in slave-like conditions she’s tried to bring the issues into her workplace. Now, as a newly elected National Committee member, Julia says she will help ACRATH continue its work and ensure sustainability.

Julia was elected to ACRATH’s National Committee at its recent Annual General Meeting. Much of Julia’s career has focussed on nurturing an organisation’s mission with staff in the workplace and boardroom. She most recently spent two years with the Mater Hospital in Queensland as the mission project lead for the merger of the newly created One Mater QLD. 

“My work as a mission leader at various catholic hospitals and health settings, is about nourishing the leader’s role in leading the mission in their area and exploring what ‘the healing ministry of Jesus’ means to them in their work. Part of this exploration aims to share that the Gospel message should be a very liberating thing. It’s about understanding that Jesus accompanies people, he never abandons them.” It’s the ACRATH way.

During COVID Julia, in her work as mission leader at St John of God Healthcare, used the ‘online environment’ to work with ACRATH. In partnership with St John of God Health Care (SJGHC), ACRATH ran a formation program for leaders from SJGHC facilities in Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia. The sessions raised awareness of human trafficking and modern slavery and what can be done within SJGHC to identify and support trafficked people and to identify slavery in supply chains.

Since Julia put this training in place, ACRATH has delivered 22 two-hour training sessions to middle managers in SJGHC; this ACRATH online training has been affirmed over and over. 

“Through most of my career I’ve been drawn to working to make a difference to the lives of the most vulnerable in our community. Working with ACRATH at St John of God was a very real way of doing this. The program helped staff develop an understanding of human trafficking and raised awareness of how to respond if a trafficked person presented to a St John of God Hospital,” she said.

While the community’s understanding of human trafficking has developed in recent years, Julia believes the challenge is to help that knowledge affect change. 

“I have faith in our ability to make change. I have seen it happen many times, especially in large organisations, where supply chains have been examined and work is being done to try and reduce the risk of human trafficking in the production of goods through systematic change via good policies and procedures”.

The ACRATH National Committee members are:

• Clare Condon sgs – President
• Carmel Heagerty rsm – National Secretary
• Shane Wood cfc – Treasurer
• Annette Arnold rsj 
• Michael Mooney
• Lisa McDonald
• Meredith Evans rsm
• Julia Trimboli