Documentaries

Teapot Ministries: Where Women Stitch Together Community, Compassion, and Quilts for Crisis 

Across New South Wales, there are women’s retreats where tired women arrive on Friday nights and leave Sunday with smiles, where 1950s featherweight sewing machines work alongside modern digital models, and where every quilt made carries a label: "Made with love." 

More Than Bargains: How An Op Shop Became the Heart of Its Community 

Where can you buy a Noritake dinner set worth $500 for $1 a plate, send hundreds of dollars of donations to Fiji, and find therapy in sorting second-hand clothes with friends? For decades, a small church op shop in Wentworthville has been transforming lives, both for those who shop there and those who volunteer.

The Bombing of Darwin: Australia's Forgotten Battle  

He ran from the showers wearing only his boots, tin hat, and a towel, grabbed his gun, and took down a Japanese bomber plane. Wilbert "Darky" Thomas Hudson, known as "the naked gunner", became a national hero on February 19, 1942 – the day Darwin suffered more bombs than Pearl Harbour. Yet 84 years later, most Australians don't know this story. 

The BIG Difference of Little Communities

In this episode of Helping Hands, we see the Little BIG House breaking through the barriers of loneliness and isolation, and creating deep and meaningful community connections.

“The Little BIG House is our neighbourhood hub,” says Sarah Mathews, CEO of the Little BIG Foundation. "It’s a place where people come together. We have ninety events a month." Everything is based around creating connection and meeting your neighbours and bringing people together.

Little Wings: Flying Children to Life-Saving Treatment 

Would you prefer a 90-minute flight or a six-hour car journey with a child in pain to see a doctor? 

For families living in regional and rural Australia, this is a real-life scenario, and the difference is life-changing.  

The Forgiveness Cross: A Symbol of Faith in the Heart of Australia 

In the heart of Australia, 230 kilometres west of Alice Springs, stands a 20-metre steel cross that most Australians don't know exists. The Forgiveness Cross, launched on Good Friday 2023, marks a remarkable story of faith, reconciliation, and indigenous achievement that began exactly 100 years earlier. 

Convoy of Hope: Bringing Relief and Rebuilding Lives after the Lismore Floods

When floodwaters reached a catastrophic 14.5 metres in Lismore in 2022, the city faced its worst natural disaster in recorded history. People woke in the night with water in their homes, forcing thousands to crawl onto roofs and wait to be rescued. In the aftermath, Convoy of Hope arrived to coordinate a massive relief effort that continued for 18 months.

Volunteering, Kiosk and Kindness

Students from Marcellin College are making a difference by serving at the kiosk of the Matthew Talbot Hostel before and after school. Chris Shields, the College’s Director of Faith and Mission, says the experience teaches students about service, kindness, and non-judgment. And kiosk customers – that connecting with the student volunteers gives them hope.

Lost Children of Jonglei Scholarships

“For those children, no one can put them through school … they don’t have support anywhere else. When I set up this one so they can go to school, they get health care, they live in a good environment where they’re studying … education is the key of everything,” says Aduk Dau, founder of Lost Children of Jonglei Scholarships.

This week, we join Aduk Dau at her Women's Afternoon Tea fundraiser and see the inspiring story about her passion to provide secondary school education to vulnerable South Sudanese youth, displaced by civil war and living as refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya.

How Vision Radio answers the call to connect rural Australia

“I like the isolation, but I also am a social person,” shares 76-year-old Alison Gray. “I have the radio on most of the time – on my phone. I just have it in the background, and it helps, it encourages me – lifts my spirits up.” 

In this episode of Helping Hands, we join Alison on her property in outback Queensland to see how Vision Radio provides authentic and meaningful connection for those who keep our country running in some of the most isolated places.

Learning about Australian Indigenous culture on Boigu Island

Located in the northernmost tip of Queensland’s Torres Strait Islands and just six kilometres from Papua New Guinea, Boigu Island is where Laurel was born and raised, among idyllic natural beauty, within the love and strength of her indigenous culture and community. 

“For me, growing up on Boigu Island was like living in heaven on earth”, says indigenous evangelist, Laurel Pabai. 

A Very Aussie Christmas

As a broadcaster reaching towns and cities in every corner of Australia, Vision Media is in a unique position at Christmas time. Rise and Shine breakfast radio presenters, Fel Limmer and Andy McLennan, invite listeners from the city to the bush to share the ways they celebrate Christmas.

Operation Christmas Child - the gifts that keep on giving

“Operation Christmas Child is a really tangible, hands-on way that Australians can show love to kids in need around the world,” say Leanne Palmer from Operation Christmas Child.

In this special episode of Helping Hands, we’ll see the wonderful people, passion and purpose behind Operation Christmas Child and journey alongside their work as they coordinate Samaritan Purse’s annual Australia/New Zealand gift-giving initiative.

Ending the cycle of violence with KYUP! power

Incidents of violence against women are sadly growing. In Australia this year alone, horrendous statistics show us that more than one woman has been killed every week through domestic violence.

This is what makes the work of the KYUP! Project even more important, and it’s what drives the passion of its founder, Mel Thomas. Created to break the cycle of family and domestic violence at its grassroots, the initiative is fast becoming Australia’s premier violence and prevention empowerment program for teens.

Changing children's lives, one shoebox at a time

“The kid that’s receiving this gift, that was us twenty years ago … We were kids in a country that was going through war. We received it, and it truly did mean a lot to us,” says Lina, an Operation Christmas Child volunteer.