In 2000, just a few months after the East Timorese people voted for their independence, Jane Woolford, CEO Mary MacKillop Today, stood in what had once been a classroom. The roof was gone, the walls were ash, and the children were sitting in the rubble, waiting to learn.
The Sisters of Saint Joseph were already there. No fanfare, no press releases, just women with fierce determination, walking alongside students and teachers as they rebuilt their education system from the ground up.
That moment never left Jane, because it revealed something she has carried ever since: when everything else is stripped away, education is what communities reach for first. It is how people reclaim dignity, opportunity, and hope.
Saint Mary MacKillop understood this 160 years before.
She saw children being left behind, because of where they were born, because of who they were, because no one else would come. And she was fierce about it. She didn’t wait for the world to be fair. She walked into the dust and built schools herself, alongside the Sisters of Saint Joseph, going wherever the need was greatest.
That is who Mary MacKillop Today is.
The same inequities. A different address.
This August, as we celebrate the Feast Day of Australia’s first saint, let’s be clear: the injustices Mary MacKillop fought have never gone away. They have simply changed address.
Right now, 273 million children around the world are out of school. In Timor-Leste, just one hour’s flight from Australia, only 20% of preschool-aged children are enrolled in early education.
Around 70% of Grade 1 students do not meet basic learning outcomes. And for children living with disability, girls in particular, the barriers run even deeper: undertrained teachers, classrooms not designed for inclusion, and communities where stigma can close a door before learning has a chance to open it.
Australia’s first saint was also its first education activist. She was excommunicated for speaking up. She kept going anyway.
On 8 August, her feast day, we are asking: what does it look like to be fierce for fair in 2026?
Meet Maria.
One of the children I want you to know is Maria. She is nine years old and lives in a remote mountain village in Timor-Leste.
Maria has a visual impairment. Every morning, she walks to school along narrow dirt paths and across rivers. Every step is an act of determination.
Her father Silveiro is also her teacher. He received training through Mary MacKillop Today’s Inclusive Early Education Project, learning step by step how to support children like Maria in his classroom. Her classmates walk with her through the village. Her teacher Joana gently guides her as she works. Maria has now progressed to Year 3.
When we hear Maria’s story, think of Mary MacKillop. Think of the same courage, the same refusal to accept that circumstance should determine what a child becomes.
Maria is fierce for fair. Every day, without fanfare.
The need is also here.
Being fierce for fair does not stop at our borders.
Here in Australia, the same connection between limited access to education and entrenched disadvantage plays out in different settings. It is why Mary MacKillop Today delivers financial literacy programs in regional New South Wales. It is why our First Nations Scholarship Program supports Indigenous Australians to complete tertiary qualifications, many of them the first in their families to do so.
Whether in Timor-Leste, Fiji, Peru, or regional Australia, the story is the same. Education delivered early, inclusively, and locally creates ripple effects that extend across families, communities, and generations.
Mary knew it. We know it. And now, this August, it is your turn.
Now it’s your turn.
The Feast Day of Saint Mary MacKillop is on 8 August. We are marking it as we always have — by doing something about it.
This year, through our Fierce for Fair campaign, we are asking supporters across Australia to walk in Mary’s footsteps. To be the kind of people who see a need and don’t scroll past it.
Your tax-deductible gift can help:
- train teachers to effectively include children with disability in every lesson
- provide inclusive learning materials — from Braille storybooks to large-print resources — for preschool classrooms in Timor-Leste
- support a First Nations student in Australia to become the first in their family to graduate
- equip families in regional New South Wales with the financial skills to break free from debt
Every gift is an act of courage. Every gift carries Mary’s work forward.
Be fierce for fair.
