Common Wealth

TEAR Australia's partnership with Indigenous Communities in Australia.

For many years, TEAR has partnered with Indigenous Christian groups in Australia. In 2008, we have launched the Common Wealth program to bring these partnerships together under one banner.

Mural on a wall in Yarrabah, an Aboriginal community, about an hour’s drive south of Cairns.
Used with permission, Yarrabah State School

Through Common Wealth, TEAR will grow the partnerships we already have with Indigenous Christians, and build further opportunities for community development with Indigenous peoples. It's also an opportunity for us to engage non-Indigenous Australians with the issues faced by our Indigenous brothers and sisters and advocate with them to create a fairer Australia.

After many years learning from our work overseas about how communities can overcome poverty and exclusion, we dare to hope that with humility and courage, we can share our learnings in Australia. We will hasten slowly, building on what we know makes communities thrive. TEAR will expand our support of agencies training Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in community development, and provide seed funding for small community initiatives. We will also support Indigenous groups to advocate for their rights. We will be guided by people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who have much experience working with Indigenous communities.

Above all, we hope that just as TEAR has up until now provided a way for the Australian Christian community to live out its confession of Christ as Lord of both heaven and a redeemed earth, through responses to global poverty, it will also provide ways of sharing more equitably the common wealth of Australia.

We invite you to get involved with Common Wealth too. Through prayer, learning and giving, you can further the Common Wealth program and become a partner with Indigenous Christians in Australia working to build their communities.