Micah empowers Australian Christians to advocate on the most urgent global justice issues facing our world today – extreme poverty, rising conflict and climate change.
Through our key initiatives and campaigns, we support Australian Christians and church leaders to engage our federal politicians warmly and relationally, leading to significant outcomes on key issues of global justice.
How have we seen this?
Our Christians United for Afghanistan campaign in 2021-22 saw over 6,000 Christians, 300 churches, and 97 organisations united as all mainline denomination leaders signed our call, helping to secure $140 million in humanitarian assistance and refugee places for Afghans in crisis.
Our End COVID For All campaign from 2020-22 became a national movement of more than 25,000 Australians and 200 organisations across health, aid, business, unions, tourism, and academia. The campaign helped secure $1.3 billion in temporary pandemic aid measures to protect our global neighbours.
The Help Fight Famine campaign in 2023, addressing food insecurity caused by the war in Ukraine and drought in the Horn of Africa, helped secure an additional $69 million in Australian humanitarian assistance.
Now, amid a period of global turmoil – including the shutdown of USAID and the UK’s decision to divert aid funding to defence – our current Safer World for All campaign is helping to ensure Australia protects its aid program at a critical time.
Beyond our campaigns, we excel in creating platforms and initiatives for connecting and equipping Christians to think and act justly.
These initiatives include our Micah Women’s Network and Pacific-Australian Young Leaders Summit.
For over a decade Micah ran the Voices for Justice conference in Canberra, training over 1000 Christians to take part in influential political engagement focused on Australia’s aid program and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (now the Sustainable Development Goals).
Underpinning everything we do is the Bible’s call to, ‘act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.’ (Micah 6:8)
We believe that when the Church exercises its prophetic mandate as a voice for justice, the actions of an entire nation can be changed.
Dive deeper into our beliefs through our discussion papers on Poverty and Biblical Justice and Christian Political Engagement.
Our Team
Tim Costello
Executive Director
Matt Darvas
National Director
Beck Wilesmith
Senior Advisor / Micah Women's Network Coordinator
Rosaline Parker
Pacific Australian Emerging Leaders Network Coordinator
Phil Wilkerson
Operations Manager
Taylor Blair
Government Relations & Events Officer
Sav Cameron
Micah Women's Network Co-leadOur Board
Trevor Thomas
Managing Director of Ethinvest || Board Chair
Karen Quast
Board Secretary
Melissa Lipsett
CEO of Baptist World Aid
Kim Haworth
Divisional Commander NSW/ACT, The Salvation Army Australia Territory
Denison Grellmann
CEO of Adventist Development and Relief Agency Australia
Scott McLaughlin
Chief of Brand and Communications World Vision Australia
Emma Penzo
Head of Economic Policy, Australian Banking Association || Finance, Risk & Audit Subcommittee Chair
Bec Oates
CEO of Tearfund Australia
Jo Knight
CEO of Anglican Overseas Aid
Miriam Sherwin
Director of Organisational Development, Integricare Limited. || Board Deputy Chair, Governance and People Subcommittee ChairOur Members
Micah is supported by a coalition of Australia’s leading Christian international development agencies who provide the core input into shaping, resourcing and implementing Micah’s strategy.
