The small community of Millgrove, in Victoria, is part of a nationwide project funded by the Minderoo Foundation that promotes community-led resilience to natural hazards.
Supported by the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience (AIDR) and the team at ResilientCo, the Millgrove Resident Action Group (MRAG) have been asked to dream big and are being helped to pull together a plan with small and large projects designed to lift Millgrove’s resilience.
Millgrove is the first community of 50 Australia-wide identified by Minderoo to undertake a community planning process with the chance to develop a Community Resilience Plan as part of a national Fire and Flood Resilience program.
Over the past few months, MRAG and the project team has used available data, community conversations and local knowledge to look at what is important to the community. As part of the project, a survey of just over 100 people showed that of all the issues people worry about, fire and related impacts and activities are where people want the greatest focus.
Through this process, a number of key priorities emerged that were able to be tested with the community at a Community Open Day at the end of October.
The ResilientCo team supported MRAG members in discussions with their community to talk about the development of the Community Resilience Plan and using a big map showing the township and some of its vulnerabilities to natural disasters.
As a passionate, active voice in their community, MRAG has a number of projects already under their belt and more to come.
It’s a pleasure to work with such amazing connected community leaders, and with the project partners.
October 31 2022