Floods that hit Launceston two years ago may have hit communities hard, but some pupils in the flood zone have found a creative outlet.
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Pupils from Invermay Primary School, in conjunction with mentors from the Big Picture School, and the City of Launceston have created three videos with big messages.
The videos were created as shareable community resources to help people prepare and plan for a future flood event.
Floodscapes is a community project that engaged students, the council, the state emergency service and the meenah neenah Aboriginal cultural education program to develop the videos for the community.
Project leader Karen Revie said young people were the future leaders of the community.
“What we found is it is much more effective when you have children educating adults, so we deliberately put the power in their hands,” she said.
“We knew there had been a lot of awesome footage captured of the floods in 2016 so we wanted to use it in a creative but meaningful way.”
The videos each focus on a different message, which was conceived by City of Launceston emergency management consultant Bev Allan, in conjunction with SES’ Mhairi Bradley.
Each video gives tips and advice on what to do in the event of a flood, how to prepare your pets for flood evacuation and how you can help the community.
City of Launceston management consultant Bev Allan said the council wanted to send the message to the community that response to flood events was everybody’s responsibility.
“We want the community to be on board with this as well as agencies,” she said.
“So, it’s not just us responding, we want the communities to be on board, that is a shared responsibility.”
All schools that were involved in the project were schools who were directly in the flood zone.
Invermay Primary School had to evacuate its 300 students in 2016.
Principal Tony Brazendale said because of its use of social media, the school was able to evacuate its pupils in 45 minutes.
He said social media was an exceptional tool to be used in emergency situations, which had been evident in the quick evacuation of the school.
Mrs Allan said the council’s social media experienced unprecedented growth during the flood event.
“We have TasAlert, which is a website used for emergency response but because it’s based in Hobart we found there was a delay,” she said.
“People were coming to us for the correct and most up-to-date information.”
With that in mind, the pupils created the three videos that are short, to the point and easily shared on social media.
Mrs Revie said she wanted to see the videos go viral.
They have only been live this week but so far the videos have been shared in Tasmania, Victoria and the United Kingdom and Scotland.
The films were released on social media on May 30.
“Within 24 hours of it being released on social media, the Water Wise film was viewed by more than 1.4 thousand people,” Mrs Revie said.
However, films debuted at the Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival, which was held in Launceston on May 17-20.
The videos feature original artwork drawn by the pupils and animated over footage of the floods.
Invermay Primary School Grade 6 pupil Georgina Lovell said she contributed three pieces of art for the videos.
She drew a phone for one video, some kitty litter in the video about pet preparation and a tennis ball in the third video.
“I didn’t know much about floods before I did this project, except that if you were in a flood zone you should get out,” she said.
“But since doing the project I learned a lot more.”
Georgina said she learned about how important it is to have a plan for your pet in place in the event of a flood.
“You need to make sure you have somewhere to take them and they have everything they need,” she said.
She also said she learned about how to help your neighbours.
“It’s important if you’re neighbour is elderly or they have a disability, it’s important that you help them get out because you all want to escape the floods alive,” she said.
The videos will be used as a community resource, shared on social media but also housed on the City of Launceston website.
Invermay Primary School principal Tony Brazendale said Invermay Primary School tried to engage its students in community activities.
“We are in the swamp zone, so to speak, so it is particularly important to us,” he said.
“Kids are the messengers.”
He said there was evidence that fire safety messages are relayed from pupils to their parents and believed flood messages were as integral.
“When you think about what happened recently in Hobart, that is the importance of them,” he said.
“At the moment it’s all about promotion but when a flood happens again it might plant a seed in someone that they might sit back and think, they have this resource.
Big Picture School principal Adrian Dean said collaboration was an important part of the school’s curriculum.
“The more opportunities our young people get to be involved in community programs that benefit the wider community, the better,” he said.
“The opportunity to work with others is a great skill for these guys to experience.”
Floodscapes also ties in with Invermay Primary School’s bid to restore the school’s missing bell tower.
Mr Brazendale said the school was in discussion with the community to raise funds to restore the bell tower.
If the project comes to fruition, discussions will be held with the council to install a flood siren in the bell tower.