President’s Update

We are in AWE of all AWE members and all other emergency workers,  volunteers and other staff who have worked tirelessly to support Australians through a particularly busy summer season with a number of major events including significant bushfires in Tasmania, floods in Townsville, bushfires in QLD, NSW, SA, and WA, large, ongoing bushfires in Victoria’s south east, and the recent cyclone activity in the Northern Territory.

AWE would also like to express its support for Muslim communities both in New Zealand and Australia that have been impacted by the horrendous violence in Christchurch. AWE also acknowledges the extraordinary leadership of New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern whose courage, commitment and compassion are providing certainty, comfort and hope to all New Zealanders as they struggle to come to terms with the terror attack.

In the News

A group of AWE Network members collaborated to nominate fellow AWE Network member, Carla Adams, for the Inspector-General Emergency Management “Champion of Change” Award. The award celebrates people who actively champion change in the disaster management sector to bring about equality for women. We were thrilled to learn that Carla received a “Highly Commended” for her work. Carla is an Emergency Management Coordinator with QFES, and has been a huge support to many women new to the sector. Congratulations Carla! (Post copied from Iain MacKenzie).

We are rapt with this note from an AWE member who’s husband has been promoting AWE with this encouraging email to his colleagues … “This is a truly progressive networking association for women working in or contributing to emergency management and is free to join. With over 1000 members across Australia across all facets of emergency management, response, recovery and resilience, is a terrific opportunity to share emerging trends, lessons learnt, and a raft of other relevant information in the EM space with other professionals.”

AWE was mentioned in the City of Sydney Local Emergency Management Committee news after a presentation from NSW Chapter Lead, Catherine Strods. Catherine received this wonderful follow up email, “My colleague and I attended and spoke at the recent City of Sydney LEMC and I heard you mention the Women in EM group.  I’m wondering if you could provide me a little more detail regarding it?[A colleague] is very interested in joining, but I will also push it around the office to see if there are a couple more staff that may be keen.” Great work Catherine.

International Women’s Day 2019 – #BalanceforBetter

It was great to see so many people celebrate International Women’s Day this year. It was also exciting to see so many emergency management and disaster resilience organisations celebrate the contributions that women make to our sector!

AWE members were out in force to celebrate International Women’s Day around Australia and New Zealand with drinks, lunches, breakfasts, guest speakers and film showings. Thank you to all who organised and attended events.

AWE Melbourne members met for breakfast at the UN Women’s IWD Breakfast. It was a double celebration as we celebrated 1 year since AWE’s inception; the idea of AWE came to life at this breakfast last year.

IWD Federation Square, Melbourne

AWE had its first public outing in Federation Square in Melbourne as part of Victoria’s Emergency Management – More Powerful Together Celebrating International Women’s Day 2019.  As well as signing up new members, having the opportunity to talk to many people about AWE, and importantly young girls, we gave interviews and also assisted in surveys conducted by high school students about women’s roles in emergencies.

There were plenty of yellow AWE badges being worn around Federation Square as many donned the yellow in support of women’s role in emergencies.Representatives from Fire and Rescue Services, Police, Ambulance, State Emergency Service, Life Saving Victoria, Red Cross, IGEM and Emergency Management Victoria were all there.

Here are some photos from the day.

Other IWD Highlights

• AFAC, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience highlighted careers in fire and emergency services and natural hazards research to women and girls as part of the celebrations for International Women’s Day. Read this write up about IWD 2019 by AFAC, BNHCRC and AIDR about Celebrating International Women’s Day 2019 –  celebrating-international-womens-day-2019.
• NSW State Emergency Service Pledge for Parity – NSW SES has pledged to:
  • Help women and girls achieve their ambitions
  • Challenge conscious and unconscious bias
  • Call for gender-balanced leadership
  • Value women and men’s contributions equally
  • Create inclusive, flexible cultures
• Queensland’s South Eastern Region police and emergency services celebrated the contribution of female emergency services and safety staff in the South Eastern Region.
• The Country Fire Authority (CFA) celebrate women in emergencies on International Women’s Day by launching a collection of filmed interviews with female firefighters and hearing from some of CFA’s female leaders.
• CFA Emergency services women were recognised on IWD – CFA’s most recent recruitment drive saw a 42 per cent jump in the number of females applying to be a career firefighter!
• ACT Emergency Services Agency recognised the valuable contribution women make to emergency services in the ACT.
• AWE Co-founder Amanda Lamont shared some of her stories and reflections in the March Australian Women’s Weekly, in celebration of IWD.  https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6509536261475266560

AWE Events

ACT AWE Social Breakfast – Canberra, 13 April 2019

ACT members are invited to a brunch at Two Before Ten, 68 Bandjalong Crescent, Aranda from 9:30am on 13 April. This is a casual get together for members to meet and get to know each other better. Two Before Ten is pet and family friendly. Feel free to invite others you think may be interested in the AWE Network. http://twobeforeten.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Aranda-Menu_Jan-2019.pdf
Please RSVP to AWE ACT Chapter lead, Leah Bach ([email protected]) by 6 April.

Vic AWE Networking Event – Emergency Services Foundation Conference – Melbourne, Tuesday 28 May

An AWE Networking Event will be held in conjunction with the Emergency Services Foundation Conference in Melbourne on Tuesday 28 May from 5.30pm – 7.00pm. We are delighted to announce Carol Matthews will be our guest speaker for the evening. The AWE networking event is free and you don’t have to be registered for the ESF event to come to the AWE event. Drinks are at own expense. Please register your attendance at the event at https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/awe-networking-event-melbourne-28th-may-2019-tickets-59436835174

AWE will also be organising networking events at the following conferences:

• Gold Coast – ANZDEMC Conference 12-13 June
• Canberra – Australasian Natural Hazards Management Conference 17-19 June
• Melbourne – AFAC and BNHCRC Conference and ADRC Conference 27-30 August

Contact [email protected] for more information.

Other Events

From the Heart

From the Heart is an exhibition at Melbourne Museum marking the story 10th anniversary of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. This poignant project invites you to reflect and contribute to an interactive Tree of Remembrance, and includes a small selection of objects from the Museum’s Bushfire collection, as well as images of environmental recovery and initiatives focused on staff and community wellbeing.

AWE Chapter Updates

ACT

See upcoming events for information about the ACT AWE social breakfast in Canberra on 8 April.

ACT AWE Chapter Lead Leah Bach ([email protected]) would love to receive any feedback you have on AWE’s initiatives so far or other things you would like to see AWE do in the future in ACT.

New South Wales

Sydney AWE members met with AWE co-founder Amanda Lamont at a breakfast in Sydney recently. If not for meetings, emails and pressing emergency matters, the group could have spent the day sharing ideas, book suggestions, recent research updates, philosophies about resilience and details about our upcoming AWE events.

The NSW AWE members also met recently over drinks, which included a great representation from our deaf community.

A few NSW members are looking at organising a community fundraiser day with stalls, handouts and speakers in September this year and a formal annual gala function nearing the end of the year with partners welcome. Would be nice to mention some of these ideas as we are tabling them formally in the next meeting as an agenda item, it will hopefully get the group excited for 2019!

AWE NSW 2019 Schedule of Events

New Zealand

A message from our AWE Chapter Leads and members:

“We would like to thank people for their kind messages following the Christchurch mosque shootings and acknowledge those responding on the ground and behind the scenes. The outpouring of love and support has been powerful and has prompted some important conversations for our country.” Jolie and Elizabeth

South Australia

AWE SA members attended a risk workshop on 27 February hosted by the Adelaide City Council, thanks Emina for organising.

Emina Allegretti (L), Sharon Lomman (C) and Abigail Walters (R)

Other AWE SA activities include some of us attending breakfast for International Women’s Day, circulating information and having a catch up drinks night on the 29 March.

Information circulated has included articles on why women tend not to apply for jobs they think they are not qualified for, how to replace the word “sorry” with a less debasing and positive words such as “thank you” and information on job vacancies:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6503739176079458304
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:6501901317403926528

Some AWE SA members attended a seminar presented by Dr Glasser, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.  The seminar focused on the effects climate change has on National Security.  His paper on “Preparing the for the Era of Disasters” is highly recommended and can be found on the Australian Security Policy Institute (ASPI) website: https://www.aspi.org.au/

Keep an eye out for future events and please send any suggestions, comments, ideas and articles to Abigail or Anastasia.

AWE Networking

A small group of AWE women have started meeting regularly to discus books they’ve read relating to disasters and resilience. Why don’t you form a group and start your own AWE book club?

AWE Mentoring

Our mentoring program is underway with one AWE member reaching out to another and they have now set up a mentoring relationship and have already begun meeting. Whilst the AWE Committee formalise the AWE mentoring program, if you would like a mentor and have someone in mind, or even if you don’t, contact us at AWE ([email protected]) and we can see if we can put you in touch with someone.

AWE Committee Update

The AWE Founders recently met with Renae Hanvin from corporate2community to discuss strategies and business plans for the AWE network in 2019. After meeting with more members of the AWE Advisory Group we will share the outcomes of our planning and strategy meetings with members.

Professional Development

• If you missed this opportunity in the last AWE newsletter, don’t forget to register on the ABC News Speakers database. ABC News is currently building its database of women across industries to call on as expert talent, opinion leaders and sources for interviews/commentary on their digital and broadcast platforms. This database will be used by ABC News interview producers, talent bookers and journalists.

• The 141 companies recognised as employers of choice for women https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6506279373409222656

Membership

AWE now has 987 members across Australia and New Zealand.
ACT        28
NSW      145
NT          19
NZ           8
QLD        159
SA           71
TAS         38
VIC          510
WA          53

Social Media

Don’t just follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram – you can also post your own entries and share ideas, thoughts, invitations, etc.

In case you missed it this month on social media:

• Barriers and enablers to women in fire and emergency leadership roles – by Debra Parkinson, Alyssa Duncan and Frank Archer
• This Volunteering Australia Volunteer Survey may be of interest to our AWE members  
• The AWE Network has received a message from one of our AWEsome members “Hi, I’m a retained firefighter with Fire and Rescue NSW in Culcairn! Our team currently have 5 women out of 12 firefighters! I think we do a fantastic job & bought some great diversity to our station. I’m really happy to see that more & more women believe in themselves and want to become apart of an emergency organisation!” We just hearing these stories!!
• From Paula Hives, AWE Treasurer – Been to some amazing places, National Crisis Management Centre, Joint Centre for Disaster Research, local REMO and finished with a lecture near the war memorial. Enjoying all the time with people from Australian women in emergencies network and CS Global
• One of our fabulous AWE Women spelling it out for our New Zealand counterparts on a recent trip to NZ.

• We’re better together. “There is a special place in heaven for women who support other women.” Shelley Zalis As Madeleine Albright said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”
• Julie Bishop is steering a new group called Emergent Women. “Sure, you can have quotas and targets and you can mandate equality, but at the end of the day it’s about attitudes – it’s about how people feel about gender equality.” “Unless there is a pool of talented women to choose from, women don’t put themselves forward in the same way as men.”
• Great day with a double celebration – firstly the Women in Fishing Network – established over a year ago and now with over 1100 members helping and encouraging women to enjoy all the social and health benefits of fishing – especially good to have our Minister Jaala Pulford and our Chair of the Victorian Fisheries Authority Gail Owen celebrating the network.
• All Hail the Rise of the Otters Did you know that female otters band together in rafts to prevent each other from floating out to sea? The Australian Women in Emergencies Network (AWE) is another example of women working together to support each other.
• Into the danger zone with the first all-female ChemCentre emergency response team

Don’t forget, just liking or following us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram does not automatically make you an AWE member. If you would like to become a member and receive monthly newsletters and other opportunities, please click here.

And don’t forget to send the links to friends and colleagues you think could be a part of the AWE Network.

The AWE website is coming soon – we will let you know when we go live.

Fundraising and Other Opportunities

Australian Women in Emergencies (AWE) Network GoFundMe campaign

AWE recently launched a GoFundMe fundraising campaign. We have already raised $1000 but would now like your help to promote the fundraising campaign so that we can meet our target of $5000.
There are several ways you can do this:

1. Copy and paste the blue information below and send in an email to your state and territory members, colleagues and networks – don’t forget to include the AWE logo
2. Post/share on your own Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram accounts
3. Remind your members, colleagues and friends at events that you are attending
4. Use any other ideas you might have and share them with us!

AWE has launched a GoFundMe fundraising campaign to help support the formalisation of AWE and undertake the following activities:

1. Establish a website and online shop
2. Host our annual members meeting
3. Provide events and regular communications
4. …and much much more!!

Donate today and help AWE continue its work to promote, support and develop the the strengths, skills and insights that women bring to emergency management and disaster resilience.

Many thanks to all, and should you have any queries please contact [email protected] or Lisa Jackson who is managing the GoFundMe campaign.

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