For Ms Robinson, who has committed more than 30 years to fighting humanitarian crisis, the issue of refugees and displaced people is not theoretical. It is very tangible. It has a face. It has a location.

She thinks of the three generations of Somali's living in a single thorn-bush and trashy-plastic-sheeting shelter she met in a refugee camp in Yemen, or the young women she met in the Congo who "could have had a decent crack at life" had they been born into another country, or the terrified and malnourished Kurds she delivered food to through the Iraqi Mountains after the commencement of chemical bombing during the Halabja massacre.

Ms Robinson joined the army aged 17 but after serving for more than 10 years, decided she wanted to see another side of life.

"I realised I was incredibly fortunate," she said. "I wanted to see if I could help those less fortunate than myself."

That was how she joined the United Nation's World Food Program and found herself coordinating the delivery of essential items and food to refugees in northern Iraq during the Saddam Hussein regime.

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After Iraq, Ms Robinson managed a refugee camp in Yemen where she organised a football tournament for local refugees. The competition became legendary among families, with stories told and retold and passed down for years to come - such was the excitement of the opportunity.

"The human spirit stood out," Ms Robinson said. "Just the complete joy they experienced of holding a football or a basketball and playing with an aging Australian woman."

Unfortunately, where a global disaster occurs, so Ms Robinson soon follows, but she said it was incredibly exciting to have worked in so many odd corners of the world.

After the Rwandan genocide, Ms Robinson was in the Belgian Congo, where she worked coordinating resources to support different satellite cities of refugee camps, most in excess of 300,000 people - sometimes more than 500,000. Ms Robinson was struck these refugees were fleeing their own countrymen who had turned murderous; their neighbours become killers.

"Numbers can be numbing," Ms Robinson said, "but there are 27 million refugees worldwide today, and twice as many displaced in their own country.

"We in Australia are incredibly lucky. We have a role to play in upholding international and humanitarian law."

Her travels have also taken her to China, North Korea, Japan, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Somalia, Kenya and East Timor. She was in Liberia as the World Health Organisation training coordinator for the Ebola response and has received three Humanitarian Overseas Service medals from Australian prime ministers.

She has seen human life in some of the toughest situations imaginable, and yet she has witnessed amazing hope.

"They were so welcoming, even if all they could offer you was a glass of water."

For Ms Robinson, it is the human side of the refugee crisis that has motivated her more than 30 years, and continues to motivate her now. It is the human story she urges we do not forget.

She said the 'Hope Rising' exhibition shone a life on a very human issue.

"That exhibition is hope rising," she said. "There is so much hope there - a helium of hope."

'Hope Rising' is running from June 17 to July 2 at the Mechanics Institute, Page Street, Moruya.

June 17 to 25 is National Refugee Week. The 2022 theme is Hope.