Disaster Resilient: Future Ready is a national initiative that supports remote, rural and regional communities to lead initiatives that improve wellbeing, increase preparedness and strengthen resilience, so they have greater capacity to endure, adapt and evolve positively when faced with the impacts of climate, disasters and other disruptions.
In North Richmond/Kurrajong:
As a result of DR:FR workshops run by FRRR, the North Richmond Working Group was formed with the remit to build grassroots community resilience by determining what is needed to be better prepared for a natural disaster. They identified a key priority for the region was education and community connectedness. On behalf of the Working Group, Peppercorn Services received the first DR:FR grant of $40,000 for the StreetConnect project which seeks to engage school students from the local area to improve community preparedness for natural disasters, support community information sharing in emergencies and improve community safety.
To achieve this outcome, students and teachers will visit 60 percent of local residents at their home to determine their existing knowledge of local emergency services, flood and bushfire risk before showing them how to prepare emergency kits and connecting them to local emergency services if required. The project is designed to be iterative and will likely adapt to include lessons learnt during the project implementation period.
The StreetConnect model has been met with overwhelming support from the community and has even been successful in securing additional funding partners to expand the program into the future. The North Richmond Working Group is excited to see the positive impact it has had during the fire and flooding activity in late 2019; they have also identified additional communities nearby that have also expressed interest in delivering the program in their own communities.
Learn more about it here:
https://frrr.org.au/funding/disaster-resilience-and-climate-solutions/disaster-resilient-future-ready/drfr-nsw/