A LOCAL history project by Southern Downs Regional Council (SDRC) documenting local residents’ stories of disaster, recovery and resilience after the 2010-’11 floods has been named a winner in this year’s Condamine Awards.
Hosted by not-for-profit group Condamine Alliance, the aim of the biennial awards is to recognise and celebrate outstanding contributions by individuals and organisations to improve, protect or promote natural resource management in the Condamine catchment.
The winners across nine award categories were announced at the awards and gala dinner on Friday 31 October at the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba.
Council’s project was named in the Cultural Heritage category and was declared the winner among a very strong field of contenders.
Mayor Peter Blundell said the DVD was a powerful and moving account of people’s personal stories and it was for this reason the project has been called “In their own words”.
“Our community development officer Pam Burley has worked incredibly hard on this project and there has been an enormous contribution from community members, businesses and emergency personnel,” he said.
“One of the most significant images for Pam was when one of the recovery volunteers told her about a clean-up at an older woman’s house at Warwick. The volunteer saw the woman’s photo albums being piled up with other damaged books.
“Being a young person, she recognised that these photos were a lifetime of memories at risk of being destroyed by the flood damage. She gathered them out of the damaged pile of books from the bookshelf, cleaned each photo individually and pegged them out to dry on a clothes line – this story says so much about the spirit of goodwill that surrounded this devastating weather event.”
The project was funded through the Community Development and Recovery Package, a joint initiative of the Australian and Queensland governments, under the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements.
“The funding was used wisely – council felt the project should capture the stories from across the Southern Downs so 12 people were trained in the gathering of video and audio recording material and a total of 40 interviews were completed,” Cr Blundell said.
