10 NOVEMBER 2020

FEATURED PROJECT
Collective weed management in post-fire landscapes

In late October, Sonia Graham and her team went on a field trip to the South Coast to visit community members near Cobargo. The team conducted interviews with six people to speak about the challenges surrounding weed management in bushfire affected areas.

Strategic weed control is crucial in post-bushfire landscapes and many weed species have a competitive advantage after fire. New weed species, brought in by emergency vehicles and machinery, require attention. This project investigates how to create a meaningful and impactful weed management resource to transform individual and community responses to weeds.

The team is interested in engaging with anyone involved in managing weeds in south-east NSW and will begin conducting phone interviews this week. They are looking for people who have organised or run a weed management project, program or activity (this can be on an individual property) and that live or work in south east NSW or adjoining areas. Taking part in the research would involve participating in a telephone interview that would take up to one hour. If this sounds like you or someone you know, please email sgraham@uow.edu.au with details.
 

Online Seminar: Climate, disaster and mental health

For Climate Change Week and Mental Health Month, UOW Global Challenges hosted an interdisciplinary seminar at the Bega campus, featuring a panel of experts on 'Climate, Disaster and Mental Health'. We want to thank our wonderful panellists for sharing their knowledge and stories: Sam Avitaia, Dr Anthony McKnight, Dr Joshua Whittaker, Prof Lorna Moxham and Prof Sharon Robinson.

We received wonderful feedback from seminar participants who shared that "This was the best seminar I have attended all year. The panel were extremely open, thoughtful and generous with their stories."

It was particularly inspiring to hear from Anthony McKnight, who shared with us his knowledge on connecting to Country, Aboriginal people’s knowledge system and holistic Country centred approaches to healing nature and healing ourselves. Lorna Moxham also reminded us of the importance of language in providing a safe space to allow trauma stories to be shared without judgement: people are entitled to grieve and live with their trauma for a long time.

We want to thank the regional campus managers and staff for hosting us and sharing their stories when we travelled down the South Coast to meet with them in late October. The stories we heard along the way were extraordinary. Our regional communities still need support to recover. We encourage everyone to make plans to visit the South Coast, support local business, listen and learn, advocate for climate, and disaster policy and planning.

If you missed the seminar, you can watch it at the link below.

Funding Success

During our second all-team Disaster Response meeting in mid-October we heard from each team who shared updates and progress on their projects. We want to congratulate our Disaster Response teams who have been awarded additional funding for their projects.

Cultural burning for resilience: Youth-led participatory action research to promote Indigenous practices for Country (CI Kat Haynes)
Funding from the NGO the ‘Treading Lightly Foundation’, which has matched GC funding, allowing the project to hire a local Wollongong filmmaker (Main Collective) to create a film to foster connection to Country

Building Community Resilience to Bushfires (CI Paul Cooper)
Funding from 'The Shark Institute', which has (more than) matched the GC funding for the project

Stories affording pathways to healing: practices supporting community recovery and resilience post disaster (CI Lynne Keevers)
Expanding their research project through $426,000 in funding awarded by the Australian Government's Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) for a project titled ‘Narratives of Recovery - Practices supporting community mental health and wellbeing post bush fires and COVID–19’. The project will be based around Shoalhaven working with partners: Waminda South Coast Women's Health and Welfare Aboriginal Corporation, Milton Ulladulla Hospital and the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District

INFORMATION FOR RESEARCHERS 

Sam Avitaia and Jaimey Facchin have generously reminded us that they have the Vice-Chancellor’s Special Award for helping community during South Coast crisis. The award money needs to be spent by the end of 2020 and they would be happy for researchers to come down to visit the South Coast and use the money to cover accommodation costs and make the visit possible.

Researchers are welcome to sign up to the Bega local bushfire recovery newsletter, and may be interested in this newsletter feed accessible here.

Sonia Graham has generously shared her team’s COVID-Safe plan on the shared OneDrive folder under ‘Ethics and Wellbeing’: accessible here.

Kat Haynes and Josh Whittaker are happy to provide guidance for interviews with people affected by bushfires when teams start going into the field as they have conducted almost 200 interviews with disaster-affected communities.

Grant Opportunities

Bushfire Recovery for Wildlife and Habitat Community Grants Program:
Grants from $5,000 to $150,000, up to $10 million in total
Applications due: 27 Nov 2020
View the grant opportunity here 

Indigenous Fire and Land Management Workshops Program:
Grants from $20,000 to $200,000, up to $2 million in total
Applications due: 10 Dec 2020
View the grant opportunity here

Bushfire Local Economy Recovery Fund:
Grants from: $200,000, up to $4 million.
Applications due: 11 Dec 2020
View the grant opportunity here

Citizen Science Grants: Round 2
Grants from: $150,000 to $500,000 that has a national impact and supports community participation.
Applications due: 17 Dec 2020
View the grant opportunity here

Support Services

The following list of support services offers bushfire-specific wellbeing support on the South Coast. Aside from Lifeline, Red Cross, Black Dog Institute and Beyond Blue, these are the services which have offices locally who are offering specific support:

Remote psych telehealth (through your GP): video counselling for anyone impacted. Call 03 5222 4789 or your local GP Practice.

Anglicare (Batemans Bay, Moruya and Bega): face-to-face, phone, Skype counselling. Call 1300 651 728 or email counselling@anglicare.org.au.

Relationships Australia: counselling available in Bega and Moruya. Call (02) 6122 7100.

CatholicCare: Moruya (02) 4474 4551, Bega (02) 6492 4203

Grand Pacific Health (offices in Moruya and Bega): call the main switchboard on 1800 228 987 and they will transfer you to a local representative

Katungul Aboriginal Corporation Regional Health & Community Services: call Narooma – (02) 4476 2155, Bega – (02) 6492 0532, or Batemans Bay – (02) 4488 4050.

For more information and project support email Tasch Arndt, Research Officer, Building Resilient Communities Challenge at narndt@uow.edu.au. For the full team's contact information our website.

If you have an update to share about your project in the next newsletter please email globalchallenges@uow.edu.au.