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Our sector is about building safer communities. We continue to forge alliances and collaborative partnerships with government, non-government and not-for-profit agencies to ensure that the safety of the community is maintained, minimising the risk of loss to life, property and the environment, not only on the land but also in the vast oceans and other waterways. |
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Volunteers join the fight to raise community awareness |
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In the last four months alone the FloodSafe volunteer crews have participated in over 80 community events, including street corner meetings, school visits and sporting events. The program looks to utilise existing volunteers, and attract new volunteers, to help with specialist community education volunteer work, as opposed to the traditional rescue role. Volunteers are provided with specialist training in the areas of communication and presentation skills and how to handle multicultural and communication issues, to become 'community presenters'. FloodSafe volunteers are divided into 'crews' and allocated a flood-prone council area. FloodSafe Project Officer, Judith Bleechmore says, "The program provides existing volunteers with an alternative to the traditional operational role. It allows those with a passion for community education and safety to make use of their interpersonal skills while also adding to their operational knowledge of floods." The project has also attracted new volunteers to the SES, who have a background in nursing, teaching and project management, and are interested in helping to educate their local communities to be aware of and prepare for flooding. "These new volunteers are not trained in emergency response but are well suited to be FloodSafe 'community presenters' as they have good communication and public speaking skills," says Judith. The success of the program has seen all six southern metropolitan councils involved in the first year of FloodSafe (2008-09) extending their partnerships and a number of other councils will join the program in coming months. Planning is underway for tailored flood education programs to be offered in Mallala, Barossa, Gawler, Port Adelaide Enfield, Charles Sturt and Onkaparinga in coming months.
CFS Community Education and Public Warnings Manager Fiona Dunstan said, "Our communities can never be too prepared, and CFS volunteers are ideally placed to help arm home owners with all the necessary tools and information to make safe decisions in the event of a fire. "This is a new and exciting pilot program that will train our CFS volunteers to help create a bushfire ready community through the delivery of clear safety and awareness messages."
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