Catholic community leader Sam Hardjono has been awarded an honorary lifetime membership of the Red Cross, the organisation’s highest honour. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
Mr Hardjono previously served as the inaugural general congregational manager for the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, also known as the Josephites, and was until recently the chair of the Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) NSW board, along with other senior roles.
Dedicating over 20 years of service to the Red Cross across various positions, he helped steer the organisation through critical roles such as chair of the NSW board from 2015 to 2020.
Mr Hardjono said his Catholic faith is his “guiding compass” and he had been working with the Red Cross mainly in volunteer roles for decades.
“You do these things not to expect any award or anything, you do it because you believe in the cause and everything else,” he said.
After learning about opportunities with the Red Cross, Mr Hardjono applied and was appointed to the NSW Red Cross board as an advisory board member.
Eventually rising through the ranks to chair of the board, Mr Hardjono was awarded the distinguished service medal for his work during the 2019 Black Summer bushfires.
“From a governance point of view, it was about ensuring the staff were motivated, and our volunteers, communicating with our other volunteers or our members that were helping or being in different parts of New South Wales during the time,” he said.
He praised the “incredible tenacity of the staff members and volunteers” as well as ordinary Australians who banded together to help one another during the crisis.
He also praised his strong Catholic education, which began when he went to an Ursuline kindergarten and continued on through his years at Waverly College in Sydney.
“It was that formation of faith during that period of time, little did I know something was entrenched in me regarding the community and regarding helping others,” he said.
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Catholic leader given Red Cross’ highest honour (By Tara Kennedy, The Catholic Weekly)
