On Thursday, Neighbourhood House co-ordinators from across the Buloke Shire met with the newly appointed community recovery officers, Claire Cook, Bruce Stafford and Sam Wheelhouse, and their manager Jo Postlethwaite, to learn more about the Community Recovery Projects being rolled out in the Buloke Shire, and the potential for collaboration.

The Community Recovery Officers have been appointed to enhance the Council’s capability and capacity to assist the Buloke community with short and medium-term recovery from the recent floods and to build community capacity to respond to future disasters.

Jo Postlethwaite and her team outlined the projects they have planned including creative recovery training artist workshops, Buloke Brogues, Buloke Busy Bees, Buy Buloke, Men’s Shed Biodiversity trail, Lego Masters, emergency management training for communities, online gaming connected communities, Buloke’s Best Lawn, a combined Buloke Youth function, distribution of the Uniting Churches hardship support fund gift cards, wellbeing toolkits and the playspaces launches.

The Buloke Shire Council Community recovery team outlined where there was potential for Neighbourhood houses in Buloke to collaborate with the Buloke Shire to help deliver these projects at a local level.

In response the Neighbourhood House co-ordinators asked for more input to the planning stage of these projects, and for the Shire to work with the Houses from “the ground up”, and respect their long history of place based work within their communities, particularly with connecting and including those who are vulnerable, marginalised or isolated.

Neighbourhood House coordinators hope that by working collaboratively with the Buloke Shire, and each other, they can help achieve better community engagement in their local communities and better outcomes for Buloke residents.

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 21 November 2023.