Resilience Starts at Home – Community-led Disaster Response
This year’s theme for the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is “Resilience Starts at Home”. AICCM, in collaboration with Blue Shield Australia, is hosting webinar to explore this theme with a focus on community-led disaster response in Australia and New Zealand.
The event will feature an expert panel of four women working in and with communities in the field of disaster response and resilience. Sharing case studies and insights, the panelists will highlight how disaster resilience starts in the community.
The event will close with the launch of AICCM’s 2027 Disaster Preparedness calendar.
Time: 12:30 – 2:00 pm AEST
Date: 13 October 2026
Location: Online
Link to Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__Nzt2wBFQwyhWIOVVNhCzg
Panalist Bios
Carolyn McLennan is a Senior Conservator at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. She has worked as a museum conservator and cultural heritage consultant in northern Australia and neighbouring countries over the past thirty years, taking a holistic, community-led approach to caring for collections. As an objects conservator, her work involves preventive and remedial conservation, education and training, exhibition development display and touring, collection governance and tropical museum building design. Her research interests are cultural heritage conservation in tropical environments and the role of conservation as soft diplomacy.
Vanessa Keenan is the Recovery Coordinator – Victorian Bushfires at the Australian Red Cross. Vanessa is a professional emergency management practitioner, Black Summer bushfire survivor and has over 20 years experience working in and with the museums and collections sector. She developed Red Cross’ first playbook for the establishment of the Australian Emergency Fund, supported the establishment of the Victorian Emergency Relief Fund and in the wake of the Porepunkah tragedy, managed temporary memorials across the State. She also responded to the Bondi attacks. Vanessa curated Arbour Festival, a nationally recognised creative recovery initiative in the wake of the Black Summer bushfires and serves her community as Chair of Eastern Riverina Arts.
Vicki-Anne Heikell MNZM (Te Whānau ā Apanui) is the Iwi and Community Preservation Advisor at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. Vicki-Anne works with iwi, hapū, marae, and community organisations to build capability in the care and stewardship of documentary heritage collections. Her work focuses on community-led approaches that support the preservation of cultural heritage, strengthen local capability, and enable communities to care for their own collections and knowledge. She was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2021 for services to heritage preservation and Māori.
Vicki Edmunds is the Bushfire Recovery Manager at Blue Mountains Council and has worked at the Council in a number of roles. With a restructure in July 2019, Community Development was added to Vicki’s portfolio which also included Community Disaster Recovery. Hitting the ground running with the 2019/20 summer fires, Vicki led the Council response to Community Recovery. With an ongoing and ever-increasing interest in Disaster Recovery, Vicki is now involved with the Australian Library & Information Association Blue Shield Australia partnership and more recently as a Red Cross DRAMA Mentor.
Questions?
Contact secretariat@aiccm.org.au