Guess what?    I am 12 days away from reaching my goal of not buying any new clothes for one whole year!!    WOWSERS. Can you believe it? I am finding it hard to believe myself. It is a pretty big deal for a shopaholic like me to go this long between purchases. At this point, I …

It’s not ok that lifestyle choices we make feed injustice, poverty and oppression. We enjoy lots of opportunity in Australia – opportunity that demands responsibility and action.  ‘A Million Simple Acts’ was our 2019 campaign to take steps that change lives. At Ordinary Heroes, we wanted to inspire more people to take action, and do …

“Valentin, would you be available to give another seminar about building assistive devices?” Dilorom* called me one morning. Dilorom is working for an international NGO in a neighbouring town. Over the past years, Operation Mercy partnered with them and exchanged seminars and training. Growing capacity is part of Operation Mercy’s vision, and therefore we are …

The Women and Youth Empowerment project includes learning about health topics. Participants had a lesson about healthy living and how important good nutrition is and were challenged to read the book, “Healthy food”. One of the participants reported, “My husband was interested in healthy food. When he read the section about proteins, he started buying more …

It is easy to think about development work only in terms of improving physical aspects of a community like economics or health. However, transformational development also means coming along-side the poor to help them spiritually and socially. It even means encouraging them to laugh and play.  We often view the poor as simply downtrodden, sad, …

Anyone who’s been with us for a little while will know all about Lisa and her sustainable fashion challenge. For anyone that doesn’t, here’s a bit of an overview. Lisa is the General Manager at Ordinary Heroes™. She absolutely looooovees to shop. But she was becoming more and more aware of the impact fast fashion …

Our modern world is so drastically different from any in humanity’s past. Almost everyone can consume and accumulate just as many possessions as the rich and powerful.  But that ability comes at a terrible cost. Most of us have probably heard the term “Sustainable Fashion”. But this doesn’t mean that we understand it. It was …

You know you’re in Belgrave when the first person you meet is a cheerful elderly gentleman dressed entirely in bright orange. The best part? He was wearing an eyepatch wonderfully reminiscent of a pirate… That was the sight that greeted me as I walked out of the train station. I was on my way to …

A couple years ago, Operation Mercy held a country-wide conference to train and equip local community-based rehabilitation staff. Our three local Isfara staff attended this – the first time they had gone to anything like it. One coworker, Nodira, returned sharing how she felt her world-view had been significantly impacted. By talking with many people …

Picture this, you’re finally sitting down with a glass after a long day. Just unwinding. Maybe you’ve got some music playing. Maybe you’ve got a book in front of you. The last thing on your mind is the process your wine has gone through to become what it is today. The very last thing on …