What we’ve been up to
As we recover from the heavy rains and floods that have affected our region, and before we finally get a break from 2020, we thought it timely to share what we’ve been up to this past month.
Hot projects
Mel Bloor and Claire McLisky, the geographic groups co-leaders, are currently working on two different streams:
Supporting the leaders of the neighbourhoods registered with Resilient Byron to nurture and grow the connections within their neighbourhoods, with other neighbourhoods and with organisations and community groups to make their communities more resilient and regenerative.
They are also running a series of 7 pilot workshops in Bangalow on building resilient communities. The workshops are organised by theme and focus on addressing resilience challenges including climate change, food, water, energy, infrastructure, economy, ecosystem and health.
Seb Berry and Johno Hunter, the Food security co-leaders, have spent many hours connecting with the individuals and organisations already working towards a resilient and regenerative local food ecosystem - made up of 3 parts in terms of access, sovereignty and safety. Our approach is to foster greater connectivity across this network and explore areas where Resilient Byron may be able to fill in gaps in information, resources, education and advocacy.
Matt Kendall, the Energy security leader has, among different actions, brought together key influential stakeholders from the region for a Byron Community Energy workshop. The purpose was to determine our vision and the challenges we’ll need to overcome if we are going to achieve an energy resilient Byron Shire. We agreed that our vision is to work towards A rapid transition to accessible community energy. Our next step is to consolidate the outputs of the workshop and the skills and expertise of the attendees to draw up a plan that sets us on a path to achieving our vision.
The Housing security team led by Michael Murray, and consisting of eight members experienced in housing issues or professions, is looking at ways Resilient Byron could:
Be a resource and information portal to improve the resilience of existing housing to the oncoming climate extremes.
Promote and advocate for more diverse housing in Byron Shire to maintain a diverse community.
Creatively and non confrontationally change the conversation around future housing and development so it can be more inclusive and future appropriate.
We are currently working on an “Alternative Home Expo” to be included in the Renew Fest in May 2021. For this, they are networking, listening to, and conversing with many groups, organisations and individuals located on all sides of the property divide. As you probably know, there are many, many hurdles to bring resilient housing in the Shire, but hey, we're onto it :).
Giulia Ogaza and Isabel Halse, the Health and Wellbeing co-leaders, have put together a team of diverse and complementary individuals, and seek to collaborate and connect with existing services, organisations and people to provide resources, education and tools to improve the health and resilience of the individual, our community and the planet.
They are also working on a mental health campaign that will launch in May after the Renew fest.
Paul Sudmals, the Safety and Emergency leader is having on-going meetings and conversations with the Byron Shire Council's newly appointed Disaster Resilience Officer, as well as representatives from the Red Cross, SES, and other emergency agencies. We’ve also provided detailed feedback to the Byron Shire Council newly released Emergency Dashboard and participated as members of the Byron Community Resilience Network to a very timely Flood Recovery Exercise. Paul and others at Resilient Byron have also provided multiple flood-related resources through multiple local community Facebook groups to help our communities prepare, respond and recover from the recent wet events.
Resilient Byron’s research team, co-led by Prof. Richard Hil and Bec McNaught have brought together a team who is at the moment working on publishing 6 evidence-based, accessible and impactful two-pagers in the coming 6 months on:
How do communities reconnect?
What is resilience?
What is regeneration?
An explainer about emergency services in the Byron Shire
Youth’s views, fears and hopes about climate action in the Byron Shire
Community disaster recovery
Money doesn’t buy happiness but it gets more projects
We're delighted and grateful to announce that Resilient Byron has received a $10,000 grant from the Northern Rivers Community Foundation! The grant will serve to organise a ‘Resilient Communities’ Facilitator Training in partnership with OzGREEN. The training is a 7-module community education program that engages the community to strengthen disaster preparedness and resilience. Local facilitators are trained to empower communities to implement projects that build their resilience. It focuses on addressing resilience challenges including climate change, food, water, energy, infrastructure, economy, ecosystem and health. Expect to hear more from us about this next year!
(Photo by Kurt Petersen)
Renew Fest has also received a grant from the NRCF and, in partnership with Resilient Byron, will be embarking on The Byron Shire Resilience-and-Regeneration Roadshow in the lead-up to Renew Fest 2021. We’ll be gathering local community change-makers from across the Shire for 5 free afternoons of neighbourly inspiration, connection and celebration Feb-May 2021. More to come very soon….
We also submitted a large grant application to Resilience NSW to fund a project which aims to establish a network of 100 trained and mobilised Community Carers and Responders (CCRs) in the 5 LGAs affected by the 2019-2020 bushfires. CCRs would support their community throughout the disaster management cycle (prevention, preparedness, response and recovery) and build community resilience and regeneration . Stay tuned!
Resilient Byron has successfully been registered as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. The next step for us is to obtain the DGR status.
We’ve been involved in many, many more activities, including conducting a survey of the Mullum Public School’s youth views about climate change, attending multiple community events with a Resilient Byron stall, writing a submission to Rous Council about the proposed dam etc., but hey this update is getting too long, so we’ll stop here.
We hope you have joyful, restful and fulfilling end of the year celebrations and look forward to connecting with you next year. May 2021 be eventless, not unprecedented, you know, just a normal year!