Resilient Australia Awards 2023 Outcomes
The Resilient Australia Awards celebrate and promote initiatives that build whole of community resilience to disasters and emergencies around Australia, as well as images capturing resilience in action. The awards recognise collaboration and innovative thinking across all sectors.
The Resilient Australia Awards is proudly sponsored by the Australian Government in partnership with the states and territories and managed by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR).
About the Resilient Australia Awards
The awards recognise outstanding contributions in each state and territory across seven categories: business, community, government, local government, mental health and wellbeing, school, and photography.
The awards recognise a wide range of initiatives with past projects centred on risk assessment and mitigation, mental health and wellbeing, education, training and research, and community engagement, as well as response and recovery.
State and territory winners are considered for national awards, along with projects entered directly to the national awards – projects selected as national finalists benefit from national exposure through a range of communication channels.
In 2023 South Australian State level winners were presented at a ceremony, hosted by Her Excellency the Honourable Frances Adamson AC Governor of South Australia.
2023 Resilient Australia Awards for South Australia
2023 Resilient Australia National Award
Finalist
Disaster Relief Australia - Disaster Relief Australia Operational Big Map Capability
Disaster Relief Australia (DRA) aim to empower communities with projects that build resilience and foster a sense of community pride. DRA understand that the best way for a community to manage and take ownership of its post disaster recovery is to ensure that community is heard, valued, and educated before that disaster occurs. Educating and equipping communities with the skills and knowledge to identify and manage hazards is integral to achieving this. At a community level, building the resilience and readiness of individuals, families and specific organisations creates a stronger community better equipped to manage the challenges of a disaster situation and recovery. A DRA flagship capability, the ‘Operational Big Map’ exercise sits at the heart of Project Resilience, a multi-phase DRA initiative designed to empower and educate communities to prepare for environmental disasters.
Resilient Ready – Kangaroo Island Business Climate Roadmap
The business community across Kangaroo Island has experienced some of the most severe disasters and natural hazards in its history. From drought to bushfires to COVID-19 closures, the extensive impacts have led to both economic and social challenges including business closures, job losses, lost livelihoods, and losing people who move off island to find work.
To support the 738 local businesses in their recovery, Resilient Ready delivered a 15-month project to co-design the ‘Kangaroo Island Business Climate Roadmap’. This free digital resource sets the Kangaroo Island Business Hub up for the next 3 years to embed 16 risk reduction micro-learning module topics across the community.
This project received joint state and commonwealth funding through the Disaster Risk Reduction Grants Program and was delivered in collaboration with the South Australian Department for Industry, Innovation and Science and included an innovative approach to community consultation, capturing the lived experiences of 16 local businesspeople. The Roadmap was launched with global resilience expert Professor Daniel Aldrich at the Kangaroo Island airport.
Department of Primary Industries and Regions, South Australia - Optimism and hope: building resilience after the South Australian Black Summer bushfires.
The summer of 2019/20 saw the South Australian Government respond to multiple and concurrent bushfire events – namely Kangaroo Island, Cudlee Creek, Keilira and Yorketown, collectively an estimated 187,000 hectares of primary production land was burnt.
Farm losses were estimated to be $186.5 million and stock losses were ~70,000 livestock, much of this on Kangaroo Island. This represents the largest loss of livestock nationally for any single fire during the 2019/20 fire season.
Working in partnership with key industry bodies PIRSA designed a recovery program that supported people to get back to business and build long term resilience.
The $19.28 million local economic recovery primary production sector (LER PPS) program was announced in February 2021. This program is complex and consists of 4 major projects across 27 initiatives. The focus of this nomination is the significant resilience outcomes resulting from this work.
2023 Resilient Australia Community Award
Highly Commended
Australian Red Cross - CALD Community Locally Led Risk Reduction Project
The CALD Community - Locally Led Risk Reduction project was facilitated by the Australian Red Cross in collaboration with CALD communities in Blair Athol, Kilburn and Parks Ward, South Australia. This pilot project was supported by the City of Port Adelaide Enfield and funded by SAFECOM. This project primarily engaged established, and new and emerging CALD communities to visualise, design and implement locally-led and culturally appropriate actions through a series of workshops to empower CALD communities to identify their gap in knowledge about emergencies and to co-design localised initiatives to strengthen emergency resilience. The project was pitched around the imperative to consider CALD community voices before, during and after emergencies whereby they are placed at the centre of the decision making around existing emergency management arrangements involving their communities. It was also to seek an understanding of how to work better with CALD communities to achieve the desired outcomes.
Finalist
Charleston Community Centre Incorporated - Operation Green Shoots@Charleston
Charleston is a small town in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. The park precinct was gifted to the people of Charleston in the late 1880s by Charles Newman. The Charleston Community Centre Inc is a thriving hub for many activities and recreation within the local community. The devastating Cudlee Creek fires threatened the township of Charleston, leaving much loss in its wake. As a response to this disaster the Charleston Community Centre Inc brought together community members to form the Charleston Response and Recovery Group (CERRG) to provide oversight and direction to develop and instigate a community led emergency response plan, education programs, infrastructure and ongoing funding and development opportunities. to the aim was to build social capital and resilience in the community to prepare for a sustained recovery from extreme emergencies and natural disasters by providing physical, mental and emotional support through community programs and projects.
2023 Resilient Australia Local Government
Winner
Adelaide Hills Council - Towards Community Led Emergency Resilience
This program works hand in hand with the community. Acknowledging the intricacies of people’s lives, the diverse contexts they inhabit and the complexity of emergencies; Council’s new Community Resilience Team is building strong relationships with the community by listening, valuing their insights, and taking collaborative action to become better prepared for future emergencies as a local council and as a whole community. As Council’s understanding of the community’s bushfire experience deepens, they are developing new strategies, processes, operations, and staff training to improve their capacity to support community before, during and after emergencies. Mew community programs, workshops, and events, website content and education resources have been developed. The formation of a dedicated community network further strengthens the collective approach, combining council and community experiences to foster comprehensive community emergency resilience. The goal is to ensure everyone is well-prepared for disasters.
2023 Resilient Australia National Photography
Highly Commended
Jayme Moreland - SASES Swiftwater Technicians
South Australian State Emergency Service Swiftwater Rescue Technicians preparing to undertake a rescue in freezing cold water, in the dark early hours of the morning. Resilience is the selfless act of volunteers breaking through their body's natural self-preservation response to not want to be in the bone-chilling water, in order to save a stranger's life.
