A new initiative advocates engaging more with people affected by events such as bushfires and floods to improve recovery after disaster.
With record heatwaves, damaging floods, raging fires, and violent storms, the world faces an onslaught of events causing severe disruption to communities. And how we respond in the aftermath of these disasters is becoming one of the most significant tests of our time.
"There's no question that with climate change, rapid urbanisation and growing inequality, more people are at risk of experiencing disasters than ever before," says disaster response and risk reduction expert Professor David Sanderson, the Judith Neilson Chair in Architecture at UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture. "Getting recovery right is crucial to lives and livelihoods, but how this tends to happen at the moment doesn't prioritise people and, at worst, exacerbates disaster further."
Prof. Sanderson has founded HowWeSurvive, a long-term, independent initiative to change how community-centred disaster recovery efforts are enacted and understood. Funded by the Judith Neilson Chair in Architecture endowment, it aims to instil active engagement and participation with local communities in all disaster recovery and resilience efforts.
Trawling through royal commission reports going back 25 years, Prof. Sanderson and his team have begun compiling stories of survival from close to a thousand people in communities across Australia through the HowWeSurvive website. The purpose is to provide a platform for the many voices of local community members overlooked post-disaster and develop knowledge and tools to reform the sector from the ground up.
"We're hoping people affected by disaster will add their own stories over time," Prof. Sanderson says. "HowWeSurvive champions best practices for community-centred recovery, which is about learning from the people directly affected by disasters.
"Because, too often, those affected by disaster are not engaged in their recovery by current systems and that needs to change."
