A SERIES of grassroots podcasts with community experts aims to better equip Ballarat's multicultural community in preparing for summer emergencies.
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The project was created after lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic in sharing reliable and credible information among different cultural groups in Ballarat, especially non-English speaking migrant communities.
Community Matters: Preparing for Emergencies, developed by Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council, focuses on key topics such as water safety, extreme heat awareness, bushfire risk and what to do in the first 72 hours of an emergency.
The podcast's project manager Sally Marcroft, from Training on Track, said the project was spark from a forum between multicultural community leaders and emergency services experts in October.
Ms Marcroft said BRMC was not creating the information, just acting as a "conduit" for relaying where to go for reliable information, after finding people had been largely consuming misinformation during the pandemic typically sourced from social media.
She said podcast episodes get straight to the "nitty gritty" on why and what to do.
"The whole part of this is for multicultural communities to have a voice at the table and be active members in the community. Knowing where such emergency information is and how to pass that on to vulnerable communities is important," Ms Marcroft said.
"...Even in planning community evacuations, it's about how do we make sure it is a safe way for people who may have had negative experiences, such as with door knocking or in evacuation centres, in other countries."
Ms Marcroft said an issue such as water safety at the beach or popular water spots was vital when Life Saving Victoria numbers showed migrants were too highly represented in drownings.
She said sometimes emergency information Australians might take for granted might not always be understood by different multicultural communities.
Episodes feature popular BRMC spokesperson Bobby Mehta, a pharmacist, in speaking with LSV's multicultural program expert Blair Morton, Grampians Health public health director Rosemary Aldrich and Ballarat City Country Fire Authority captain Nicole McGrath.
BRMC is also working to develop a web page with links to translated emergency fact sheets and apps, such as Vic Emergency.
A small team of BRMC bicultural volunteers are also developing short podcasts in-language to summarise the emergency podcast series and advice.
Community Matters: Preparing for Emergencies is available on all major podcast streaming services.
