Community Group Newsletter 3: Your Groups Role in Recovery

This is the third of four e-mails prior to the ShakeOut and the topic for today is

YOUR GROUPS ROLE IN COMMUNITY RECOVERY

You may not have thought of your groups potential role in the recovery of your community, but your members may well have skills that could be useful in the aftermath of a major earthquake. It would be good to think about what you have to offer and perhaps even notify the District Welfare Officer (located either at or through your district council) beforehand, together with the names and addresses of group leaders. Some wacky examples are given below just to start the train of thought!

• Outdoor groups may well have rope rescue skills and equipment as well as tents, sleeping bags and portable cooking equipment
• A DIY group will have obvious skills to assist people with moving back into partially damaged housing
• Knitting groups may well be able to knock up some blankets between them to keep a family warm
• Any groups could assist with catering at welfare centres
• Woodchoppers could chop wood for heating
• A 4WD group could get to places that others could not

The main thing to discuss is what you can do and how you can communicate with members to get them to help. Pre-planning may be enough because the earthquake itself will be enough to say that help is needed. Groups of like minded people can often achieve much more than the sum of their individual members.

Chris Manuel
West Coast ShakeOut Coordinator
www.shakeout.org.nz

The information in this e-mail is the opinion of the author, after significant research. If you are making decisions based upon it, please take the time to follow the links and check up on the details that will affect your decision. Copies of this and previous e-mails will be available shortly on the website http://www.shakeout.org.nz, so if you have only just registered you can see what you have missed.