Bushfire grant to expand community preparedness and emergency resilience training
News
Resilience NSW has awarded us a grant to expand our Animals in Bushfires community workshops in Northern New South Wales through the Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience fund .
Between September and November 2021, the grant will allow us to deliver the workshops in person to residents across Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour, Lismore and Richmond Valley local government areas.
Simone Clarke, Executive Director for World Animal Protection Australia said;
“Animals are often the forgotten victims in bushfires. We need to continue to support communities to plan ahead and be ready to protect their pets and learn how to safely help injured or displaced wildlife during disasters.”
In 2020, we delivered the first Animals in Bushfires community workshops in the Blue Mountains, NSW in collaboration with local council, land services, emergency researchers, wildlife groups and a leading vet.
The aim of the workshop was to increase community recovery and resilience knowledge for pets, farm animals and wildlife.
Building on insights from the Blue Mountains event, we collaborated with Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital to create a digital version of the workshop which was delivered to more than 40,000 people online.
The team from Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital will join us at the upcoming community workshops along with their mobile wildlife hospital. The mobile hospital is a customised semi-trailer and is Australia's largest mobile vet hospital.
Resilience NSW is the lead disaster management agency for the state of New South Wales, responsible for all aspects of disaster recovery and building community resilience to future disasters.