We’ve come together to find jobs that need to be done in the aftermath of the 2019–2020 Australian summer bushfires, and people who can do those jobs. We want to help communities after the media and the fire trucks have gone home, and fill gaps left by insurance companies and government programs. We have members focusing on care for wildlife, on bush regen, on domestic and property clean-up, and more.
We’re all in Extinction Rebellion — we want the climate emergency declared by all governments, we want those governments to act now for climate justice, and we want citizens directly involved in decision-making at the highest levels. But we are also members of this beautiful, embattled Australian community, and we’re desperate to help anyone suffering the impacts of our unprecedented fire season. XR (short for Extinction Rebellion) brought us together — and the kind of people who join such a movement are obviously the kind of people prepared to roll up their sleeves and do what needs doing.
It will entirely depend on whether we can do them. We’re not stupid: we’re mostly city peeps with zero firefighting or demolition experience. We’re also juggling our activism and this volunteering with work and kids and elderly parents and other community commitments. We plan to either slot in quick ‘Ghostbuster’ responses — someone driving three Ventolin puffers and a box of groceries to a displaced family a couple of hours out of town — or plan and execute a larger ‘Rebuilding’ job — a deep clean of a surviving house in a fire zone, or getting debris off a property so recovery can begin, or replanting a garden with seedlings we’re starting now so they’ll be ready in a month or two — over a weekend enough of us have free.
We’ll donate what we can, use our own gear, source it from friends and family. We’ll accept discounts and donations from businesses and organisations. We don’t have a way as a group to take cash, but individual members might feel comfortable taking a donation and turning it into something a bushfire survivor needs.
Go here and fill out the form. Join our channel on Mattermost (link coming soon…) and if a job is listed and you can do it, volunteer. Put feelers out in your own networks for anyone who needs something no one else is providing. Whatever it is, if we can’t get it, we’ll do our best to find someone who can.