Like everyone, I am aghast at the events in Paris and Beirut. I have been grappling with whether to write anything, as there have been plenty of words and lines written since Saturday, and I’m not sure if I can add anything worthwhile. I haven’t watched the news bulletins, getting most of my information from […]
Read more "Cities of Light"Today I had the most fortunate privilege of helping launch an amazing research project from the University of Melbourne. Born over a cup of coffee between Lou Harms(a researcher), and Rhonda Abotomey (a Black Saturday survivor, who lost family in the fires), where Lou put into terms what Rhonda had been feeling “There’s a term […]
Read more "From Little Things, BIg Things Grow"Normally Hurricane warnings in the Gulf Country don’t make news here in Australia. This one, on a Tuesday ten years ago, did, as it was rated a Category Five and heading straight for New Orleans. I watched the events unfold with interest, then horror, as the levees broke. The professional fascination lie with the catastrophic […]
Read more "Katrina 10"Value. How do we place it on what’s at risk. Implicitly we think we know, because our default position with what’s at risk in disasters is life, and property. But we know from dealing with the consequences that it is way more complex than that. A recent workshop I attended through the Bushfire and Natural […]
Read more "Diamonds are…"Late last year I attended the Red Cross’ Global Resilience Forum in Cali, Colombia. Cali is possibly one of the furthest cities from Melbourne. It also rates as one of the most dangerous cities in the world (which I found out as I was researching what I might do with spare time while I was […]
Read more "Global Resilience Forum"This is a fascinating piece of writing on the aftermath of MH17by one of Australia’s best journalists, Paul McGeough. In amongst the horror of the crash, McGeough and his photographer colleague Kate Geraghty collect sunflower seeds from the crash site of MH17 and arrange to give them to family members who lot loved ones in […]
Read more "Sunflowers"Sendai memories Yesterday, I caught up with Pepi Ronalds, a freelance writer, holding a Wheeler Centre hotdesk fellowship. Pepi was in Sendai during the 3/11 earthquake, teaching English, and since then has been using her writing skills to help make sense of what happened during, and more importantly after the event. Her piece, Memories are […]
Read more "But if you write it down"The good folks across the ditch at New Zealand Red Cross (Elizabeth, Jolie, Holly) have released a guide to recovery called Leading in Recovery: A companion in chaos. This is a great little piece. And that is its beauty. It’s slight, not dense, not theory driven, not lofty, there to be a companion. Working in […]
Read more "Der Himmel Über Recovery"I’ve got a request. We are in the process of producing new rediplans (due in October 2015). We have been talking through the front cover with our designers. They asked us “if you could take one photo that represented preparedness, what would it be” So, with that in mind, we thought we’d get some help […]
Read more "if you could take one photo that represented preparedness, what would it be"Red Beans and Rice Tonight I’m cooking Red Beans and Rice. It’s a specialty of New Orleans. Usually cooked on a Monday, washing day, and put on in the morning and cooked real slow. I learnt this from NPR, America’s great public broadcaster, when I was in Washington, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. […]
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Sastrugi 