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    Building Resilience in the face of Catastrophic Events
    Building Resilience in the face of Catastrophic Events
    Building Resilience in the face of Catastrophic Events
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Building Resilience in the face of Catastrophic Events

    By Dr Margaret Moreton

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    About this ebook

    Hints and Helpful Advice about What to Do

    What people from disaster affected communities want us to know and do: before or after we face fire, flood or cyclone. How they want us to benefit from what they lived through.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLeva Resources
    Release dateJan 24, 2020
    ISBN9781393616696
    Building Resilience in the face of Catastrophic Events
    Author

    Dr Margaret Moreton

    Dr Moreton works with communities to support them identify, understand and strengthen their assets, to prepare for all hazards, to strengthen their resilience and their recovery from disasters, emergencies, shocks and stresses. She advises and works with all levels of government, and with non-government organizations including philanthropic foundations.  She advocates for the inherent resilience of communities and the importance of community agency and voice.

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      Book preview

      Building Resilience in the face of Catastrophic Events - Dr Margaret Moreton

      Dedication and acknowledgement

      I dedicate this book to the communities across Australia who have been devastated by an extreme weather event or crisis of some kind (e.g. fire, flood, cyclone or heat-wave); by a tragic accident or a deliberate act; or by the closure of a crucial local industry or employer.

      So many Australians have survived a major shock to their way of life, to their community, to the place they call home. Nothing will ever be the same. We fear that our life will never return to the way it was before. We are temporarily knocked down. However, across this country, many take a deep breath, and stand back up. Even better, some of us reach out to one another to offer a hand in support. Some of us change our lives; we dare to dream, we learn from our losses, and we emerge stronger from our experience.

      This book shares the experience of ordinary men and women across Australia, with communities everywhere. It has been written to give voice to what these people have learned about themselves, about loss and grief, and most importantly about the restorative power of human compassion and kindness.

      Their advice and experience may help you when you don’t know what to do - when you need an idea to help yourself, your family, your neighbours or your broader community; to rebuild your sense of safety or connection wherever you live and whatever has happened.

      The book is based on community-based research across Australia, in communities affected by large and frightening natural disasters or emergency events. The messages are from community members themselves, from ordinary people just like you, and the wisdom is theirs.

      This book is a demonstration of the power of ordinary people, of the endurance of the human spirit, in the face or the aftermath of a temporarily overwhelming tragedy or loss.

      I sincerely thank the community members who showed me their new homes, their gardens, and the prized possessions and mementos they plucked from the ashes, the water or the broken remnants of their previous home. I thank them for their trust in me. I hope this book does justice to their experience, their optimism, their courage, and their endurance.

      Dr Margaret Moreton

      Leva Consulting

      Levaconsulting.com.au

      How this book came about

      In 2012, I resigned from my job, and embarked on a life-changing journey. I began a PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. I wanted to find out if the community that I knew as a child in rural Victoria still existed anywhere. I wanted to find out if community resilience was real; and if so, what it looked and felt like. I hoped to see it, touch it and then to share it.

      In the beginning, I doubted that human compassion was still part of the Australian way of life. I was not sure what I would find.

      I knew that I would meet people who had lost everything: people who had lost family members and friends; whose homes had been destroyed; who had lost a lifetime of possessions and treasures. What I did not know is that I would meet people who had also found something: strength that they did not know they had; friends, family and neighbours to help them; and even strangers who reached out to support them in their darkest hour.

      The experiences that people shared were sometimes complex, distressing, and threaded with grief and tragedy. And yet ultimately they were also hopeful and uplifting. I found people who were finding their way bravely through a dark moment in their lives. I found people who found the necessary courage and hope to rebuild their lives and reconnect with one another; to stand back up and find meaning and joy again.

      The people who participated in my research may not have realized how much they gave to me. Not only did they share their stories and their experience, they also gave generously of themselves, to a stranger. They trusted me with their loss and their grief. They shared their emotions and they were honest and present with me. They have travelled with me ever since, through my own ups and downs, and through losses in my life. Their words have helped me through my own grief, and have given me a hand up, when I have needed it most. I am and will be forever grateful.

      After being awarded a PhD in December 2016, I decided to do what many of them had asked of me. I decided to share their experience and their wisdom with as many people as possible. I now work with disaster affected communities and the organisations that seek to support them. I share what I have learned through my work and with the people I meet: and now I am sharing it with you.

      I ask that you also share this information with others in your life. By doing so we honour what these people have faced, acknowledge the courage that they have found, and hopefully we learn from their experience.

      The voices that fill the pages of this book are the voices of community members affected by natural disasters since the summer of 2010/11. The information is based on semi-structured interviews with them. Their key advice to other communities emerged through these interviews.

      How to read this book

      You may decide to read this entire book from front to back or you may ‘dip in and out’ of it; to find a gem of wisdom or an idea, and take time to reflect on that.

      I encourage you to become very familiar with the information in this book; it will help you if you experience a crisis or emergency in the future, it will help you if you know someone who has experienced a crisis, and it will help you if you are trying to find the courage to recovery from an event.

      There are questions scattered throughout this book. I recommend that you take some time to think about these questions as they apply to you and your community. It may be helpful to write your answers down and talk about them with your family, your household, and your friends. I suggest that you build on your answers over time, as you learn more and think further. If you decide to do everything in this book, it will take time and require effort. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and it may help to consider and act on one idea at a time.

      If more of us understand and share this information, we will be helping ourselves and we will be helping one another. Together we can create a more resilient network of people and communities, across our country.

      And if you want more...

      I cannot possibly include everything there is to know about community resilience and recovery from crisis, in one small book. I encourage you to do your own research to find out more. Some useful website links are listed at the back of this book. The more you know about why and how natural disasters and other emergencies occur, and the more you can find out about

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