Skip to main content

Find disaster recovery services and support

First select disaster or event(s)Expand list
Select assistance typeExpand list

Projects from the Northern Territory and Victoria have been recognised for their innovative efforts to build community resilience to natural disasters, sharing the overall winner’s title at this year’s National Resilient Australia Awards.

The awards celebrate initiatives that harness the collective efforts of communities, emergency services, schools, governments and not-for-profit organisations to improve our country’s resilience to emergencies.

The National Resilient Australia Awards are supported by the National Emergency Management Agency, state and territory governments and facilitated by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR), which is funded by the Federal Government.

This year’s joint overall winners were the Northern Territory Emergency Service for its Multi Agency Community Resilience Films Project, and the Community Based Bushfire Management (CBBM) approach to reducing bushfire risk in Victoria.

Minister for Emergency Management, Murray Watt said the joint winners demonstrate the power of community-led initiatives.

“2022 has certainly been a challenging year in disaster management, and demonstrates why it’s vital to be prepared and defend against natural hazards,” Minister Watt said.

“The award winners represent the best Australia has to offer in the disaster resilience space, and demonstrate how working together to be better prepared and respond more quickly lessens the impact natural disasters and other hazards have on communities.

“They underscore the shared role in reducing disaster risk, and the Awards importantly give us the opportunity to recognise the passion and hard work of individuals, schools, community groups, organisations, and governments in supporting their communities to get back on their feet.”

The Multi Agency Community Resilience Films Project develops educational films in language for remote Northern Territory communities at high risk of natural disasters. The films aim to educate aboriginal people on a number of important community topics including health, first aid and the imminent dangers of cyclones, floods and bushfires.

The Victorian Government’s CBBM project is a place-based community development approach where communities remain in the program for an extended period, often many years. This enables stakeholders to develop trust and respect, leading to meaningful conversations and more mutually acceptable approaches to risk reduction.

This year’s National Resilient Australia Award finalists included projects that strengthened cooperation and coordination in communities, focussed on mental wellbeing outcomes, engaged with children and young people, and supported inclusion and diversity in disaster management.

Further information on the winners and finalists is available at www.aidr.org.au/raa

The winners of the 2022 Resilient Australia Awards are:

Resilient Australia National Award

Joint winner: Northern Territory Emergency Service – Multi Agency Community Resilience Films Project   Joint winner: Safer Together – Community Based Bushfire Management: a place-based approach to reducing bushfire risk in Victoria  

Resilient Australia National School Award

Winner: Tropical North Learning Academy, Smithfield State High School – Cairns in Your Hands

  • Empowering the youth of Cairns through geographical inquiry and 21st century thinking skills, Smithfield State High School’s Cairns in Your Hands initiative has led to the development of a real world, authentic coastal hazards adaption plan by bringing together gifted and talented students from different schools over four days.

  Resilient Australia National Mental Health and Wellbeing Award

Winner: Phoenix Australia, Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health – Helping the Helpers support others: Building local capabilities after the Victorian Black Summer Bushfires

  • Phoenix Australia’s Victorian Bushfire Recovery Project has helped equip more than 1800 frontline workers, health professionals and community leaders to better support their community members’ recovery from the Black Summer bushfires, promote their own resilience, as well as support the wellbeing of their teams and organisations.

Resilient Australia National Local Government Award

Joint winner: AdaptWest (on behalf of the cities of West Torrens, Charles Sturt and Port Adelaide Enfield) – AdaptNow! Changing for Climate Change

  • AdaptNow! explored how diverse communities would respond to events like extreme heat, power outage, and smoke impact, as cascading, compounding emergencies with little or no time to recover between. The research led to the development of a film that highlights messages of hope, connection and capacity building, emphasising that building strong and resilient communities will be what gets us through disasters – and that close neighbours will be the first ones to help in a time of crisis.

Joint winner: Bellingen Shire Council – Community-led disaster response

  • The Bellingen Shire Council’s Pandemic Response Group (PRG) are local community and service providers, which successfully advocated for a COVID testing clinic in Bellingen, and implemented initiatives for communications and community support for vulnerable people. The PRG has also managed a holistic community-wide approach to rolling out Delta-variant vaccinations, and focuses on initiatives to provide clinical support, community preparedness and resilience, information and business support.

Suncorp Resilient Australia National Community Award

Winner: Victorian Council of Social Services (VCOSS) and Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria (ECCV) – Multicultural Resilience Program  

  • The VCOSS-ECCV Multicultural Resilience Program strengthens community resilience and reduced the disruptive impacts of COVID-19 in multicultural communities by bringing together community and emergency management leaders to learn from one other. The Program increases mutual understanding and trust between multicultural communities and emergency management organisations, working toward greater cultural safety for all who work in and with emergency management organisations.

Resilient Australia National Photography Award

Winner: Rose-Anne Emmerton – Cracked but never broken

  • Rose-Anne Emmerton’s Cracked but never broken captures a volunteer who has recently attended a fatality, answering their pager for another call. The photograph demonstrates the resilience of emergency services volunteers who answer their calls for assistance time and time again.

 

This release was originally published on the Ministers for the Department of Home Affairs' website.