News & Updates
Here you’ll find the latest updates, stories and announcements from Courage to Care — sharing our impact and keeping our community connected.
Courage to Care tells Royal Commission: education must be the foundation of Australia's response to antisemitism
Thursday 30/7/26
Courage to Care appeared before the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, calling for greater investment in education that empowers young Australians to challenge discrimination and become Upstanders.
Read Courage to Care Australia's statement
For the past three years, as incidents of antisemitism have skyrocketed, Courage to Care volunteers have continued walking into classrooms across Australia to deliver a message of tolerance, respect and the courage to stand up against hatred.
For more than 30 years, volunteers, many of them Holocaust Survivors or their descendants, have delivered anti-discrimination Upstander education to young people. But the past three years have tested that commitment like never before, with volunteers continuing to show up despite the mounting personal toll of a sustained rise in antisemitism.
Courage to Care Victoria CEO Mike Zervos OAM told the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion today that, despite the fear, anxiety and hate that volunteers have had to face personally, this sustained commitment sits at the heart of the case for placing education at the foundation of Australia’s response to antisemitism.
More than 180 volunteers, the majority from the Jewish community, visit primary and secondary schools each week to educate students on the Pyramid of Hate, which shows how hatred escalates from stereotyping to violence. On 14 December 2025, that escalation reached its most extreme point in Australia’s recorded history, when 15 people were murdered in a terrorist attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.
Mr Zervos’s evidence points to Australia having now reached the violence tier of that pyramid and argues that action is required to interrupt the trajectory before it advances further. It supports a submission lodged by Courage to Care Australia Ltd, pointing to a marked decline in social cohesion across Australia over the same period, and calling for sustained federal investment in anti-discrimination education.
Courage to Care is an independent not-for-profit organisation that has reached more than 500,000 students with its free antidiscrimination Upstander Programs for primary and secondary schools.
Grounded in universal values of respect, empathy, fairness and active citizenship, its curriculum-aligned Upstander Programs are designed to build resilience against all forms of racism and discrimination across school communities.
At the same time, they directly and explicitly address antisemitism through the lived testimony of Holocaust Survivor Speakers, whose personal accounts bring history into the present and give students a human face for the consequences of hatred and indifference.
Mr Zervos said:
“This is the reason Upstander Programs work. When a student sits with a Holocaust Survivor, not a historical figure but a person in the room who has a name and a story and grandchildren, the antisemitic attitudes formed in ignorance and isolation meet something they cannot easily survive: a human being.”
Mike Zervos OAM, Courage to Victoria CEO, appears before the Royal Commission.
Evaluations show more than 90 per cent of students demonstrate increased knowledge of bystander and Upstander concepts, and 93 per cent of teachers say they would recommend the program to a peer.
Demand to reach younger students is growing rapidly, as schools seek earlier intervention to prevent prejudiced attitudes becoming entrenched, with bookings increasing by more than 200 per cent since 2023.
Digital lesson plans, launched in 2024, have reached more than 100,000 students across 303 schools in under two years, taking steps to close the equity gap for regional, rural and CALD communities that face-to-face programs cannot reach.
Courage to Care’s aim is to create a generation of Upstanders, and the vision is simple: every teacher, school and student in Australia should have access to antidiscrimination Upstander education, and their submission set out three recommendations for the Commission’s consideration:
- Sustained federal funding for evidence-based anti-discrimination education, framed as social cohesion infrastructure rather than short-term project grants;
- Structured, accredited professional development to build teacher capability across the system; and
- Recognition of community organisations such as Courage to Care as long-term delivery partners, with multi-year funding and capacity-building support.
Mr Zervos said the case for investment was as much about prevention as it was about response.
“Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem. The fear experienced by Jewish families, and the growing normalisation of antisemitism, are symptoms of a broader challenge to Australia’s social cohesion and values. Antidiscrimination education is not a niche response to one community’s concerns; it is a preventative social cohesion strategy that benefits all Australians.”
Mr Zervos, who is not Jewish himself, said his own family’s history shaped his commitment to the cause:
“I am not Jewish. I am a Greek Orthodox Christian, and I am CEO of an organisation with deep roots in the Jewish community. My own grandfather had to flee Kalgoorlie in 1915 because of who he was. Prejudice is not an abstract concept to me. It affects real people and real families, and it can leave scars that last for generations.”
Mr Zervos said record levels of antisemitism have persisted in Australia despite significant government investment in security and incident response. The architecture of a national response is being built, he said, but what it needs now is the foundation, and that foundation is education.
The full submission was lodged with the Royal Commission by Courage to Care Australia Ltd on 8 May 2026.
Collaborating to Combat Hate: Sydney Jewish Museum and Courage to Care NSW Announce Historic Agreement
Friday 26/9/25
The Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM) and Courage to Care NSW (C2C) have announced a historic agreement of co-operation and collaboration. The move will extend the reach and breadth of their specialised education work and make the most of each organisation’s unique strengths.
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The Sydney Jewish Museum is a living museum where Jewish cultural life and heritage are illuminated and preserved, and where schools and the general public learn about the consequences of hatred and the moral imperative of Holocaust remembrance.
Courage to Care NSW conducts school-based incursion programs and public exhibitions which counter discrimination, racism and antisemitism by inspiring young people to be Upstanders.
With antisemitic incidents escalating across NSW and supporting social cohesion more important than ever, the Sydney Jewish Museum and Courage to Care NSW each play a vital role in strengthening educational responses against hate and prejudice.
The two organisations have agreed that the SJM will focus on schools in the Sydney metropolitan area while C2C will focus exclusively on delivering its messages to areas outside Sydney. This will include major population centres such as Canberra, Wollongong, Newcastle, Central Coast, the Southern Highlands, and many others throughout NSW.
The agreement stipulates regular communication and collaboration between the two organisations while maintaining the independence and autonomy of both. The Museum will offer C2C volunteers its extensive resources, expertise and professional training.
SJM president Greg Shand AM said that formalising the best use of the SJM’s and C2C’s mutual and complementary expertise, resources and passion for education would “enhance our shared missions – to educate the people of NSW about the dangers of discrimination, racism and antisemitism, to promote tolerance and moral courage.”
“Tens of thousands of students come to the Museum annually. As the museum completes its historic and ambitious current redevelopment, even more students will come through its doors to engage with its expanded facilities, programs and displays. We are singularly focussed on maximising the impact on these increased numbers of visitors.”
Courage to Care NSW has always had a strong regional focus. Chairman Tom Curtis said: “Over the past 26 years, our volunteers have conducted incursion Upstander programs and exhibitions in virtually every major town in NSW, from Murwillumbah in the north to Albury in the south.
“Almost 80% of the schools we visit each year are outside Sydney and this agreement brings with it the opportunity to sharpen this focus even further. In effect, Courage to Care will become the leading provider of anti-discrimination programs to regional NSW.
“The current climate of antisemitism in Australia demands a new approach,” continued Mr Curtis. “Every organisation seeking to educate and inspire young people to reject discrimination needs to be working closely together to ensure that our efforts are aligned and complementary. This new agreement with SJM signals the arrival of a new era, based on trust and collaboration. We’re excited for what the future will bring in enhancing our reach and impact.”
The two organisations will continue to work on a number of exciting initiatives, with more details to be announced in the coming months.
Ed St John, Tom Curtis, Greg Shand AM and Kevin Sumption.
(Photo by Geoff Sirmai)
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