Commentary
by
JARROD COBURN - Chief Executive Officer
The New Zealand Resilience Trust is a non-profit organisation that aims to create environments whereby communities can develop a state of high resilience.
Whilst the Trust does not regard Civil Defence as a part of its business, we are striving to achieve very similar things.
The Trust defines “community resilience” as the ability of a group of people to ‘bounce-back’ from an adverse experience. In this context an adverse experience might be a group of young children killed on a pedestrian crossing, the closure of a major employer, a spate of teen suicides, a major earthquake or other disaster, a place of worship burning down, an economic downturn, or anything else that has negative, community-wide ramifications.
I acknowledge that resilience is not
something easily or artificially developed, which is why the work of the
Trust is focused on identifying ‘attributes of resilience’ and assisting
local community groups to develop those attributes.
Attributes of resilience include attitudes (a sense of place, respect for one-another), actions (strong and clear communication, active participation in democracy), and awareness (communal self-awareness, a willingness to develop and draw-on resources within the community). But overall - in my opinion - resilience is driven by a common, well-understood vision.
And it is this last point that CDEM Groups and Emergency Management Offices should pay particular attention to.
Currently in this country we have a ‘structured-tight-exclusive’ model of Civil Defence within communities. This is evident where we see pockets of volunteers organised into a military-style hierarchy, granted authority to act, and working within a closed circle of information management. This is a result of the environment of 'corporatisation' – the removal of the responsibility of the public to act – that has slowly grown around Civil Defence since the 1950s.
The
model the NZRT proposes – and are developing right now in the form of the
New Zealand Resilience Corps – is an
‘unstructured-loose-inclusive’ model. This means volunteers do not have
specific job descriptions but are invited to participate in a
community-owned Civil Defence project without commitment. Large numbers
of people are invited to join the project from diverse backgrounds:
young; old; people with disabilities; people who can’t speak English… it
doesn’t matter who they are, just that they are given the opportunity to
become involved. There is a culture of transparency and co-operation.
There are no “managers”... everyone has a responsibility to everyone
else.
The reasoning behind this model lies in the understanding that ‘loose networks’ build resilience and aid recovery post-disaster. Loose networks can be developed through increasing the participation of individuals in their respective community groups, and then building informal links between those groups.
There doesn’t need to be any formal recognition or relationship between the people or groups and the local Council, because everyone who wants to become involved in Civil Defence already recognises that it is their community that survives or falls based on what they achieve.
Whilst Civil Defence is not the core of the
Trust’s work, it is a major beneficiary from our outputs. Current
projects include a pilot based in the
northern suburbs of Wellington in partnership with local residents’
associations. This pilot project is a
local charitable trust called the
North Wellington Resilience Trust (NWRT). To date
the NWRT has undertaken research (a
hazardscape analysis and identification of resources of the area),
community education (two
courses have run at the local college introducing residents to disasters
and emergencies), and is less than three months away from
opening a community-based
ambulance service. In addition the Trust will be running
training for its Resilience Corps and other community groups: most
notably first aid, PHEC, and some RAPID modules.
Other large projects – aside from the governance of an umbrella ambulance service – include an economic impact study of the loss of government services to Wellington City after a large earthquake, and support of the Federation of Wellington Progressive and Residents’ Associations (FWPRA) of the www.residents.org.nz community web portal.
The Trust does not act on behalf of any group or individual – be that community, business, or government-oriented. But we will work with anybody. We act on behalf of the betterment of society, but not in anyone’s agenda or particular vision of what that society should look like. The New Zealand Resilience Trust – and everyone involved in the Trust – strongly believe that by improving communication, self-confidence, and awareness then good things will follow.
You can click HERE to view a briefing paper on the Trust's community activities.
Contact the Trust | PO Box 24-520, Wellington 6142, Aotearoa New Zealand | +64 (4) 477 4493 | info@nzrt.org.nz