Resources for Disaster Relief and Recovery

Introduction

The Commons librarians have gathered the following resources (both in the library or external links) to support community responses to the Australian bushfires and other disasters. If you have other suggestions for inclusion please get in touch.

Please note that many of these resources were gathered during the 2020 bushfire crisis in Australia. Some information will still be relevant for other times and situations, while others may be out of date. 

Resources

Relief Efforts

• 2026: How You Can Support Fire Impacted Areas Across Victoria: Collated by Friends of the Earth
• 2020 Relief Effort Spreadsheet: This out-of-date spreadsheet is provided as an example of what information you could gather to respond to disasters.

Recovery and Resilience

• How to make your community space into a hub for local resilience and mutual aid
  This guide introduces the vision and model of a resilience hub, a place where neighbours can deepen a sense of belonging, learn new skills together, provide for basic needs, prepare for disasters, and build a more inclusive and joyful community. It draws on insights from responding to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
• Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Workshop Facilitation Guide
  Has your community experienced a disaster? Do you need to have difficult conversations and build individual and community resilience? This guide from US network MADR has all you need to hold a workshop.
• A Critical Framework for Just Recovery
  The climate crisis exacerbates pre-existing inequalities. Movement Generation provides a framework for Just Recovery from extreme weather events including root cause remedies, revolutionary self-governance, rights-based organizing, reparations, and ecological restoration for resilience. This article includes examples from the US, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
• The Response podcast episode 6: Reimagining Paradise in an age of climate disruption
  Listen to Allen’s journey and explore the lessons he brought home from Onagawa in Japan (a community recovering from a tsunami) and the rebuilding efforts in Paradise in California (a community recovering from wildfires). Discover how residents worked together to build a new vision while fighting against the forces pulling them back towards the status quo.

Navigating Trauma

• Navigating Trauma in Disaster Relief
  This guide is for anyone who is experiencing trauma and/or helping people with their trauma. It is by the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, a grassroots disaster relief network in the US based on the principles of solidarity, mutual aid, and autonomous direct action.
• Community Trauma ToolKit
  This toolkit from Emerging Minds (Australia) contains resources to help and support adults and children before, during, and after a disaster or traumatic event. It will help you understand some of the impacts of disaster and how you can help lessen these impacts.
• Staying Engaged in the Climate & Bushfire Crisis
  A collection of ideas and resources from Psychology for a Safe Climate in response to the 2020 Australian Bushfires.

Conversation Guides

• For a summary of the following guides in one place see Talking About Bushfires and Climate Change – or jump straight to these links:
  • How to talk about climate change, School Strike 4 Climate
  • Bushfire Crisis Conversation and Action Guide, School Strike 4 Climate
  • This is not normal: Explaining Bushfires and Climate Change, Climate Council
  • Communications Primer: The bushfires and where to from here, Australia reMADE
  • Let’s speak about climate change, Psychology for a Safe Climate
  • Facing the Heat: stories of climate change conversations, Psychology for a Safe Climate

Campaigning Tips

• The Lived Experience Guide to Climate Campaigning
• Media Tips from Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action
• How to turn extreme weather tragedies into climate victories

Taking Action

• 2026: Wildfires: Building Community Resilience
  As devastating wildfires tear across south-east Australia, filmmaker and local resident Alex Kelly shares her experience.
• 2020: New Year, New Action for Transformation
  As Australia’s horrific bushfire season continues Alex Kelly shares suggestions for people new to climate activism who want to take action.
• I’m worried about the climate – what can I do?
  Tips for sharing your climate story, a number of groups you can join right now, and how to get your friends and family involved too.
• Climate Resistance Handbook Or, I was part of a climate action. Now what?
  If you’re wondering how to build a powerful, strategic movement that can make big wins for climate action, this is your guide. The Climate Resistance Handbook brings together a wealth of learnings from the climate justice movement. It includes an introduction to social movements, campaign tools and frameworks, and tips on how to grow your group and use creative, impactful actions.

Do you have suggestions of other resources we could include to support community responses to disaster? Contact the Commons librarians.