“There is real fear. They need a tailored, targeted approach to living safely in central Victoria.”
Over the past four years the program has hosted information sessions, trained community champions and produced fact sheets and videos in the Karen, Dinka and Dari languages.
“The program is led by our staff of refugee lived experience, which is an important element,” Kaye said. “We know it’s culturally safe, and we know it works.”
BCHS staff work closely with experts from the CFA, VICSES and City of Greater Bendigo to deliver a program that is up-to-date with essential information for protecting against and dealing with natural disasters.
“It’s really important to have VICSES, CFA and the City of Greater Bendigo council involved because they make sure the content is correct, and we make sure it’s easily understood,” Kaye said.
“It’s also about building the capacity of our emergency services to understand the pre-and-post settlement experience of people, the challenges they face in Australia, and how best to help them in an emergency situation.”
Kaye said new arrivals often settled with very little knowledge about Australian bush and grassfires, floods and heat, which made them highly vulnerable to these events.
This year alone approximately 5000 people have viewed the emergency preparedness videos online, 1000 have attended information sessions and 15 community champions have share knowledge with hundreds more in their communities.
As conditions across central Victoria heat up, BCHS is now re-sharing the videos on social media and promoting all the resources via its Fire Flood, and Heat Safety Refugee Resource Hub.
