Round 2 funded activities

List of Round 2 Bushfire Recovery grant activities

We received 77 applications for the second round of the Supporting Communities in Recovery grants program, to assist communities to recover and heal from the 2019-20 summer bushfires. Similar to the previous round, this was an unprecedented response for COORDINARE, and underlies the extent to which communities across South Eastern NSW were impacted by the devastating bushfires.

We were overwhelmed by the continued creativity and resilience of local organisations who developed projects ranging from sporting activities, arts programs and workshops, environmental renewal, and music and community gatherings.

Congratulations to the successful recipients (listed below). The many grant-supported events and activities are as diverse as the communities represented across our vast region. Over half of the funding for the second round of grants has already been received in bushfire-affected communities, allowing many initiatives to get underway, and some are already complete. While COVID-19 has created an additional challenge, the communities and organisations involved have demonstrated amazing resilience and plan to deliver COVID-safe projects and activities to their communities.

Bega Valley

Bega Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Green Shoots: The project will be a series of outdoor activities across small towns around Bega, with live music, busking competition and an amateur art competition, to promote local community connection. A final celebration will be held in Bega with awards, performances and display of artworks.
Bega Valley Suicide Prevention Action Network Inc (SPAN) – South Coast Nurse-Led Wellbeing Program: Partnering with OzHelp, Pambula Mitre 10 and Bermagui Country Club, to deliver Nurse-led Workplace Tune Up and Gatekeeper Training Program over two days, including digital health screen across a range of measures, confidential results and prompt follow up where results are outside benchmarks, and access to ongoing support, coaching and referral.
Cobargo Wellness Group – Ginger the Frog Community Arts: To deliver a wellbeing-community arts project in three remote areas in the Bega Valley Shire, encompassing the regions around Cobargo, Kiah, Pericoe, Quaama, Towamba, Wyndham and Candelo. This project's components include: Creative arts workshops, Workshops on trauma recovery, A live professional theatre show, A post-show Wellbeing Forum with local service providers, Opportunities for the community to provide feedback, Family BBQs.
Quaama Public School PC Association – Indigenous Health at Quaama Public School: This project involves learning about Indigenous culture and the role of fire in culture, to promote healing from the trauma of the fires at Quaama Public School. The project involves three components; Indigenous healing and smoking ceremony, replanting and regenerating the Quaama School bushland bird and wildlife sanctuary and Indigenous fire themed mural painting.
Quaama Tennis Club – Quaama Tennis Club Community Fun Days: To hold a series of community days where all members of the community are welcome to enjoy social tennis and the community spirit.
Southern Women's Group Inc – Seeing Country Recovery Through the Eyes of the Yuin People: This Aboriginal community initiative will to produce a video and recipe cards; a ‘modern take’ to share and record traditional knowledge (yarning). The project will utilize the knowledge and wisdom of community elders; bring together community members to hunt and gather; yarn; cook; share and connect. This will also allow community members to share their fire stories; connect with land, country and nature; connect with how the land is recovering and talk about ways of healing and recovering themselves in the aftermath of the fires.
Southern Women's Group Inc – Accessible Art Therapy: To deliver a series of individual and group therapeutic Creative Arts sessions to residents of the Bega Valley who were impacted by the region's devastating bushfires, to provide an opportunity for people to process feelings and emotions, particularly around trauma. For many Art Therapy is a more accessible and ultimately transformative therapeutic modality for processing their trauma.
The Crossing Land Education Trust – Extension of Badja Fire Edge Roads Gatherings: This project will facilitate local community gatherings around Quaama, Verona and Dignams Creek, to offer people the opportunity to voice concerns, tell their stories, collaborate and build networks to help improve mental health and resilience. The project is a collaboration between Bermagui RFS, Bermagui SES and Bushfire Recovery Clinicians from the SNSWLHD.
Theatre Onset Inc – 21 Chump Street Tour of Isolated Bushfire Communities: Take a program of integrated workshops and performances to isolated bushfire impacted communities across Bega Valley, with the aim of providing young people with the opportunity to gain skills and confidence in the practice of performance, music or dance.

Eurobodalla

Batemans Bay BMX Club Inc – Youth BMX Sports Camp: This project will host a free 2 Day Youth BMX Sport Camp in conjunction with Sports Camps Australia, to enable 5-16 year olds to come together, reconnect and increase participation in sport.
Batemans Bay Business and Tourism Chamber – Commemorative Light Show on New Years Eve: To start 2021 with a fresh and positive ‘vibe’, and to commemorate the region's recovery and challenges over the past 12 months, hold a bright VIVID-style light show on NYE for the community. From the moment it gets dark, dozens of areas on or near the foreshore of Bateman's Bay will be lit up with bright colours and beam lights, similar to Vivid in Sydney and Enlighten in Canberra.
Batemans Bay Business and Tourism Chamber – Community Recovery Mural: To establish a Community Recovery Mural in the heart of the community. This activity will engage the community and assist them in their recovery and healing process from the recent bushfires. A local professional mural artist will guide the process and involve community members in the process of developing and painting the mural.
Campbell Page Batemans Bay - Bring Back the Music
To hold a family friendly outdoor live music community event which specifically targets young people 12-25 years. The project offers a much needed safe space for young people to connect socially, and access information about headspace and other relevant services that can help in their recovery following the impact of bushfires and COVID-19.
Creative Arts Batemans Bay Incorporated (CABBI) – Oral History of the Fire: To document the oral histories of the bushfires and deposit the tapes and transcripts with the National Library. The project will consist of a local Oral Historian meeting with interviewees, to share reflect on their experiences during the summer fires on the south coast.
Creative Arts Batemans Bay Incorporated (CABBI) – Postcards From The Fire' Online Presence: This project takes the 'Postcards from the Fire' photographic exhibition to a busy public location, providing an opportunity to reach a wider sector of the community over a longer period of time, coinciding with the anniversary of the fire. While the exhibition will be organised with volunteer labour, the project seeks support for a social media manager over this period to promote the project and exhibition and continue to collate submissions, monitor uploads and reformat uploads as required.
Mogo Village Business Chamber – Mogo Rising:To hold a single day music event in Mogo, where local bands are able to play for approximately 200 young people from the Mogo community and surrounding area. Volunteers from the business chamber and local sporting groups will act as events facilitators, security and COVID marshalls.
Montague Arts and Crafts Society – Bush Telegraph: Childrens Holiday Arts and Information Program: To hold ten half-day art and craft workshops during the summer school holidays for children from Bodalla, Tilba, Narooma and Bermagui, featuring drawing, painting, drama, ceramics and mosaics. Greeting card packs will be produced, featuring photographs of the artworks / activities and containing information about local support services.
Muddy Puddles – Creative Arts Therapy Groups: This program will include creative therapies to provide a safe space for children and young people with diverse needs to give a voice to their experiences and learn appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes to understand and manage the changes brought about by a natural disaster.
The University of Wollongong, Batemans Bay Campus – Wattle Walk: To create a shared experience that celebrates regrowth and healing, inspired by the Australian War Memorial’s 2018 “62,000 Poppies Display” tribute to Australian lives lost in WW1. The project involves extensive community participation in making and displaying a 'sea of wattle' throughout the grounds of the Batemans Bay Education Centre, in conjunction with local Art organisations and the annual River of Art Festival.

Goulburn-Mulwaree

International Volunteers for Peace Inc – Plants for Peace: Volunteers will collect donated plants from several nurseries and transport them to a central location in various fire-affected communities across SE NSW, for local residents to pick up. This grant would allow us to up-scale our project, to deliver more plants, to link up with more Recovery Officers and Councils to reach more distant locations. The plants are currently being sourced in Sydney and Goulburn but we plan to contact nurseries in other locations to increase options, improve delivery outcomes, and increase cost-effectiveness.

Queanbeyan-Palerang

A Community Under Fire Community Board – A Community Under Fire: To create a documentary of Braidwood's 2019-2020 Black Summer, focusing on the community's recovery. It will highlight the importance of community – everyday people doing extraordinary things to help our town rebound from its greatest existential threat.
Braidwood Regional Arts Group – Art on Fire, A Braidwood Regional Arts Group Community Project: This project comprises four parts for the entire community: an exhibition of artworks, an art installation made of postcards from the community, workshops and a book, to foster mental health mental wellbeing and recovery, enable the community to share experiences, and promote information about local services.
Braidwood Youth Performing Arts Association – Summer Festival of Making January 2021: The project involves running a week-long performing arts festival for young people in the Braidwood District. BYPAA organises performing arts holiday workshops and events. The festival program is devised to guide participants through a series of workshops where they will create instruments and costumes from recycled materials, form a musical group, compose a song and perform it as a filmed music-video. We have identified a diverse team of local artists and mentors, including a qualified counsellor, who we propose to employ to deliver this program.
Captains Flat Community Association – Captains Flat and Surrounds Recovery Fair: Hold a recovery fair for the residents of Captains Flat and surrounding regions (including Jindra, Jerangle, Anembo, Rossi, Forbes Creek, Hoskintown and Reschs Creek), including an outdoor movie show, fireworks, free amusements rides and face painting, information stalls, children's novelty events and a Men's Shed BBQ.
Nerriga Craft and Museum Centre – Community Fun Day: A community celebration day to help recovery from bushfires, including museum dedication, games, races and activities, in collaboration with the Nerriga Progress Association, Nerriga School Student reunion and Nerriga Fire Brigade. The day aims to commemorate the past, enjoy the present and focus on the future as a Museum and community.
The Lions Club of Braidwood Inc – Braidwood Lions Young Writers Festival 2020: To produce and distribute a short documentary video to capture the spirit of a Young Writers Festival award ceremony. The video will feature interviews with community including winning authors, teachers, sponsors, judges, Lions Club members, and of course the young writers themselves. The final video would elevate the achievements and creative potential of the young writers in our region in a story, which celebrates resilience, community spirit, and hope.

Shoalhaven

Bay & Basin Community Resources Limited – Wellness on Point: To coordinate and deliver a series of six monthly workshops / activities, with a health & well-being guest speaker and morning tea prior to activity. Proposed activities include: Keep learning (craft, music and art sessions, IT sessions, Mental Health First Aid/QPR session), Be Active (Thai Chi, yoga for different skill and fitness levels), Connect (Group lunches and morning and afternoon teas, cooking classes, book and movie clubs), Help others (volunteering of residents’ skills to deliver above activities), and Take Notice (appreciation lessons, local garden group, bush walks, mindfulness apps, community safety & emergency preparedness sessions).
Bomaderry Community Preschool – Reconnecting and Building Resilience Through Art Workshops: To run eight 3-hour Art workshops for preschool and Kindergarten families, with the aim of reconnecting the community, and building social connections and community capacity. The workshops will be designed to engage participants in visual art making as a form of nonverbal expression. The approach is designed to assist individuals to explore, externalize, process and resolve negative thoughts and feelings associated with trauma.
Lions Club of Kangaroo Valley Inc – Kangaroo Valley Mens Group: To coordinate a monthly get-together for men in the Kangaroo Valley/Budgong area for a range of activities (eg kayaking, guided bushwalks, petanque/botchi, bbq masterclass, bushfire preparedness events) to promote a sense of well-being, build relationships and develop community inter-connectedness.
Red Head Villages Association Inc – Pictorial History Book of 5 Villages – Manyana, Bendalong, Nth Bendalong, Cunjurong Pt and Berringer Lake: To create a 120-page pictorial history book capturing and celebrating the stories of five local villages. Contributions of photographs and stories will be sought from permanent residents and long-term holidaymakers, plus interviews with people who’ve made a special contribution.
Salt Care – Disaster Mental Health Counselling Training: To provide comprehensive Disaster Mental Health Counselling training to equip key workers/volunteers with the clinical skills, cultural capability, and evidence based knowledge to effectively serve in disaster-affected areas.
Sassafras and Districts Progress Association – Community Upskilling Program: To provide information and practical education/training to the Sassafras community through a variety of guest speakers and practical training in the topic areas; first aid and bushfire mitigation. Each workshop will be followed by a community get together to promote social connection and wellbeing.
Shoalhaven Community Preschool – Creative Arts Recovery Program: Deliver an Arts program to 85 preschool children. The program would run 2 days each week for a period of 6 months, and then showcase children’s art to the wider community as a celebration of healing and recovery. Up until COVID restrictions, we had an intergenerational partnership with a local Aged Care Facility which we would visit with a small group of children each week.
Shoalhaven Health and Arts – Reflect and Heal: Create arts-focused community engagement events at 3 separate locations, highlighting arts as a means to reflect and heal. Each event will comprise: (1) A walk within the natural landscape, incorporating mindful art-making processes, (2) an opportunity to join a more sedentary activity, for those less able to participate in the walk, and (3) conclude with a ceremony acknowledging the loss of wildlife and habitats.
Shoalhaven Suicide Prevention and Awareness Network Inc – Mental Health First Aid Training: To undertake Mental Health First Aid training for the Conjola and Sassafras communities. The training will be conducted within the community, reducing the need for public transport. In addition, as the training would be fully paid for by the grant any financial constraints are eased. The training would be conducted in a face to face environment that adheres to all COVID-19 requirements. Through education, community members will have a common purpose to make connections and build an awareness within the community to positively focus on mental health.
Sonder Youth – Changemakers for Ulladulla and Surrounds Bushfire Recovery: Offer young people aged 13 - 25 in Ulladulla, Conjola and surrounding bushfire affected communities activities to promote social cohesion and community wellbeing, including a skills-development mentorship program and completion of the Teen Mental Health First Aid Australia course.

Snowy Monaro

Bredbo Community Progress Association – Bredbo Christmas Capers: To bring together the whole Bredbo community for a Christmas event to celebrate the 2020 journey through bushfire losses and COVID isolation; to reconnect through laughter, food and live music with local bands. Various community and welfare organisations will also be in attendance, including the Bredbo RFS, Country Women’s Association, Bredbo Landcare and Men’s Shed.
Cooma Universities Centre Inc – Mental Health First Aid Training For Snowy-Monaro's Future Leaders: To develop skills for new and future, Snowy Monaro leaders in emotional wellbeing, resilience and bushfire recovery through Mental Health First Aid training.
Delegate Progress Association – Community Recovery Days Out: To run a series of days out for all Delegate area residents, including to the coast and other bushfire affected communities to help boost their businesses. Target groups will be business owners, families with children, farmers, elderly and the local community, and the project will provide transport, food and PPE. Participants will be able to debrief about their experiences during the fires and COVID isolation within a relaxed social environment.
Jerangle Peak View CWA – Community Garden and Networking Project: This project aims to increase social cohesion, connectedness and supportive friendships by holding a series of workshops and garden working-bees to assist in the creation of a community space in the small hamlet of Jerangle NSW.
Lake Jindabyne Dragon Boat Club Inc – 'Welcome to the Snowies' Community Concert: 'Welcome to the Snowies' is the concept for a one night community concert to be held on March 6, 2021 on the foreshore of Lake Jindabyne. The event will celebrate the revival of the Jindabyne community after the past twelve months of bushfires, Covid-19, a poor winter snow season and business recession.
Multicultural Activity Group In Communities Inc (MAGIC) – Food, Fun and Friendships: This project will promote community connections, foster mental wellbeing, and build skills through food, recipes and cooking through 'Lunch Tables' events, in partnership with the local CWA, Red Cross, View Club and/or local schools. The lunches will promote cross-cultural approaches to cooking and eating together, chatting, understanding and connections.
Shannon Payten-McDonald – The Creative Resilience Project: This project blends wellbeing with creative writing to give our community the tools they may need to work through the experiences of the Black Summer bushfires. Participants will learn how to use writing as a way to manage emotions and work through grief, anxiety, loss through reflection and expression. A mental health and wellbeing session will provide information on how to identify people who may be struggling.
Snowy River Interstate Landcare Committee Inc – Land and Community Recovery in Southern Monaro: To engage farmers and the broader Snowy Monaro community through two field events (six months apart) focusing on the medium-term recovery of land and community, following the bushfire devastation around Cathcart, Bombala and Rockton. The two events will start with a group workshop with an expert in soil and pasture health to set the scene of renewal and land scape function. The following field component will allow participants to interpret their land and surroundings through the increased knowledge gained during facilitated discussion.

Multiple LGAs

Lifeline Canberra Inc – The Working Mind Recovery Program: To provide seven 'The Working Mind' (TWM) mental health training courses in bushfire affected communities across SE NSW. TWM was born out of protecting individuals and groups who have been through traumatic events (or experienced vicarious trauma) and are potentially struggling with psychological injury or illness that requires support; or individuals caring for others who are showing mental health decline.
NSW SES Volunteers Association – Mental Health First Aid for NSW SES Volunteers: Mental Health First Aid will be delivered to NSW SES Volunteers who live and volunteer in the South Eastern PHN area. The training discusses mental wellbeing, resilience and recovery, and utilizes examples from within NSWSES and other First Responder organisations. This breaks down stigma and barriers that many people have around mental health and gives participants skills on how to challenge stigma within their own units.
Regional Development Australia Southern Inland – Discovering Resilience: Deliver a 60-minute webinar to males across SE NSW, focusing on improving mental wellbeing, and moderated by Hugh van Cuylenburg of the Resilience Project. The Resilience Project delivers engaging and relatable programs to schools, sports clubs and businesses, providing practical, evidence-based mental health strategies to build resilience and happiness.