Undergraduate Course Guide Fremantle 2020

17 APPLY DIRECT NOTREDAME.EDU.AU “Your connection to slavery—through the coffee you drink, the clothes on your back, the phone in your pocket— gives you the power to break it.” “...questioning the construct of nearly every belief system I had... I loved the process of analysis and question.” “Your connection to slavery—through the coffee you drink, the clothes on your back, the phone in your pocket—gives you the power to break it. “Slavery exists in the world today because we allow it to.” Over the past 10 years Grace Forrest has made an indelible mark as a passionate campaigner for the eradication of modern slavery, for the 40 million people worldwide subject to enslaved labour, human trafficking and forced marriage: listening to stories of exploitation in Syrian refugee camps; meeting refugee children in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley who live in constant danger of being sold into child labour; and sitting beside garment factory workers who have been badly beaten for the most minor mistakes. The catalyst for her enduring drive and passion was a school trip to Nepal when Grace was 15— funded by the money she earned waiting tables at a Cottesloe café—where she worked in a safe house for girls rescued from human trafficking. Eight years ago, just a year before she began study at Notre Dame, Grace established the Walk Free Foundation, setting her sights on being part of the last generation to live with modern slavery. Her commitment to the cause was fostered as a student of Politics, International Relations and Social Justice, where her lecturers “always encouraged me to see the world and its great issues through a different lens”. “Learning about the world and questioning the construct of nearly every belief system I had— even if I came back to the same conclusion —I loved the process of analysis and question which was always encouraged by my lecturers,” she says. Last year Grace was appointed as the youngest UN Goodwill Ambassador for Australia (UNAA) for anti-slavery and peace and security and works closely with the United Nations to put modern slavery front and centre of every agenda. “This is not a problem that happens over there. There is no over there,” Grace told a recent address to an international audience in Melbourne. “In a globalised world it is our problem and it is our responsibility to say enough, because when we care, when we shape our purchases around these questions, businesses start to listen and they start to act. “If there are over 40 million people living in the man-made machine of slavery today, then we need at least 40 million people to rise up stand up and shout out that we will not tolerate it, that we want to be the last generation living with slavery that we will not tolerate modern slavery in the products that we buy, the food we eat, or the world that we live in.” > Discover more about our Social Justice Major on page 44.