Funding to help CALD communities Get Ready for disasters

Queensland's flagship disaster preparedness, resilience and education program, Get Ready Queensland (GRQ), has received $1.5 million to create natural hazard communications materials for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities across Australia.

The funding is part of the five-year Disaster Risk Reduction Package, a $261 million joint investment by the Commonwealth, states and territories from 2019-20 to reduce the risk and impact of natural disasters.

The Get Ready Queensland team will now work to develop a series of informative videos and Easy Read resources to improve accessibility and inclusivity of key disaster information for CALD populations.

This will help improve understanding around the types of extreme weather people may face, the impacts of these events, and the ways to mitigate disaster risk at a household and community level.

The videos and complementary resources such as fact sheets and presentation slides will focus on seven natural hazards: bushfires, floods, cyclones, storms, heatwaves, earthquakes and tsunamis.

Once developed, the materials will then be translated into a range of languages.

This approach will improve the disaster resilience of all Australians, regardless of language or literacy barriers. 

The use of simplified language and images means local authorities can also get the Easy Read resources translated into other languages where there is community need.

Get Ready Queensland has a proven track record developing educational disaster resources for communities, helping families, councils, educators and businesses.

This includes promotion of the 3 Steps to Get Ready, the first of which is understanding your risk.

Awareness of local risks and having a household emergency plan could be the difference between staying safe or being placed in danger.

As the GRQ team say, “We can’t control the weather but we can always get ready", and these CALD resources will help promote that to all Australians.