How does a tight-knit community in rural Victoria approach disaster preparedness when its youngest residents have lost their sense of safety? Ten years on from the Black Saturday bushfires, we visit Strathewen Primary School to hear from Principal Jane Hayward and a group of Year 6 students about their award-winning bushfire education program and how creativity can be a tool for building resilience and making sense of disaster.
Children and young people hold a potentially powerful place of leadership within families and communities when it comes to preparedness and recovery from disasters. They are also among the most vulnerable – both in the immediate and ongoing recovery process.
When there aren’t always words to express the enormity of an experience, how can the arts provide a space for sharing stories, building resilience, reducing isolation, giving voice to experience and making sense of the unimaginable?
In this episode, Scotia Monkivitch visits Strathewen Primary School where Principal Jane Hayward, the CFA's Lisal O'Brien and a group of Year 6 students share the story of their award-winning bushfire education program.
We also speak to Professor Lisa Gibbs, the lead researcher of Melbourne University’s ‘Beyond Bushfires’ study, about the importance of fostering leadership, agency and self-determination among children in the face of disaster and Doctor Louise Phillips joins us to explore the role the arts play in leading this evolution.
Interviewees:Jane Hayward, Principal, Strathewen Primary School
Strathewen Primary School Students: Liam Brereton, Rory Gravette, Scarlett Harrison, Lachlan Seckold, Brodie Donoghue
Lisal O’Brian, Arthurs Creek Strathewen Fire Brigade
Professor Lisa Gibbs, Director of the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program at the University of Melbourne. Lead researcher of the Beyond Bushfires study which is providing ongoing insight into how people are managing after the Black Saturday bushfires.
Doctor Louise Phillips, Associate Professor in Education at James Cook University, Singapore who researches in the fields of children’s rights and arts based methodologies and co-author of the new book ‘Young Children’s Community Building in Action: Embodied, Emplaced and Relational Citizenship’
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