Australian Emergency Fund

Disasters don’t discriminate. At Australian Red Cross, we work to reduce the impacts of disasters on people and communities across the country, supporting them to prepare for, respond to, and recover well from emergencies in whatever form they take. As climate change drives disasters that are increasing in both their frequency and intensity, this work is more important than ever.

Our disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery work is based on the promotion of five key psychosocial principles: safety, calm, connection, self-efficacy, and hope. Our core activities include providing psychological first aid, reuniting families who have been separated during emergencies, outreach and connecting people to support services, offering psychosocial education, and strengthening community resilience.

Supporting communities to strengthen their resilience

In our disaster resilience program, we take a community-led, people-centred approach that supports people and communities to prepare for the short, medium and long-term impacts of disaster and crises. This work goes beyond immediate issues of survival—at workshops and events, we teach people to assess their risks and develop individual and community action plans, helping them build the confidence and resilience to face emergency situations.

Program highlights for the year ending 30 June 2024

• 47,000+ people attended community events and accessed preparedness information.
• 15,835 students attended 858 Pillowcase Program workshops in over 322 schools.
• 20,285 people downloaded and 115,392 people updated our revamped Get Prepared emergency app.
• 213,000 people were supported before, during and after disasters.
• 115,000 people accessed recovery activities, including psychological first aid, through community events, workshops, and training across Australia.

Facing hardship in Australia together

In communities across Australia, our trained volunteers and employees deliver practical and emotional support during and after disaster.

Program highlights

• 51,686 people received support and information during 70 emergency events.
• 18,675 people received direct psychological first aid, including during Northern Territory, Victoria, and New South Wales flooding events.
• 3,013 people registered through our Register. Find.Reunite reunification service.
• 1,084 volunteers and employees received wellbeing calls after responding to disaster.
• 1,462 volunteers and employees supported our programs, with 189 deployed interstate.

Our disaster recovery work has been strongly focused on providing psychosocial support to communities impacted by extreme weather events, including catastrophic bushfires in Northern and Southern Queensland, severe flooding in the Western Downs region of Queensland, and the widespread devastation of Tropical Cyclone Jasper in Far North Queensland.

We also continued working alongside communities dealing with the ongoing impacts of the record 2022 NSW Northern Rivers floods and the 2020 Black Summer bushfires. In all these locations, Australian Red Cross recovery officers remain on the ground delivering psychosocial first aid, promoting connectedness, and fostering the vital community networks and activities that have been shown to aid in recovery.

Program highlights

• 115,000 people accessed recovery activities, including 13,087 individuals who received psychological first aid, and attended community events, workshops, and training across Australia.
• 8,001 people attended training, workshops, and other initiatives to support community recovery.

When a bushfire swept through his hometown of Maryborough, Victoria, Glen, his wife, and their two daughters packed what they could, and fled with their two cats to the safety of the local relief centre. When they arrived, Australian Red Cross employees and volunteers were there to welcome them and offer support.

“I’ve truly appreciated everything Red Cross has done to keep us safe. It’s been a godsend, you know; it gives you a bit of that relief.” – Glen, Victoria

Your support enables people like Glen and his family to not only have immediate relief, but also vital psychosocial support - a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear, and connections to vital services to aid their recovery- preparing them to navigate the anxiety and distress of the fire and its aftermath.