Why is it so important to have events to kick start local communities' natural healing processes?
Why is it so important to have events to kick start local communities’ natural healing processes?
Recovery doesn’t always happen naturally. Whilst communities may naturally draw together for acute disasters like fire and flood, chronic disasters like drought and climate change can exhaust and fracture communities. The long term financial strain means that people can’t afford to travel and hence involvement in sports, voluntary work, community groups can gradually erode. Drought can isolate because drought affects each individual at different times.
Because of climate change and the socio-economic changes facing rural communities, we don’t know what returning to normal will look like after this drought. Given that the number of farms in Victoria have nearly halved since 1970, there are less people in remote rural areas to support community networks and services such as the CFA and sports teams, or to help out at schools. According to Emily Phillips (2007), a sociologist with the DPI, there will be an influx of new people (economic refugees or change of lifers) moving into rural regions and the existing rural communities will need to reach out to them in order to survive. So projects kick starting community activities, like ‘Looking out for your Neighbour’ will have added value into the future of supporting communities to adapt as our rural Victorian landscape changes.
