Page 2157 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2018
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The ACT Emergency Services Agency within the Justice and Community Safety Directorate provides emergency management services to the Canberra community. The agency includes volunteers from ACT State Emergency Service, ACT Rural Fire Service, mapping and planning support, ACT community fire units and ACT Fire Brigade Historic Society.
Volunteers are a vital component that enable the ACT Emergency Services Agency to meet its obligations to government and the community in protecting life, property and the environment in the ACT. Volunteers and the commitment they bring to the protection of the ACT community remain part of the core strength of the ACT Emergency Services Agency, and its volunteers enhance the safety of the community by providing front-line response to emergencies such as bushfires, storms and floods.
The Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate maintains a close relationship with volunteers, including volunteer dog walkers, who are an essential part of the domestic animal services, and Libraries ACT volunteers, who play an important role in enhancing and extending the services that libraries provide to the Canberra community.
Volunteers support students and a range of educational programs in Canberra’s schools. For example, the volunteer playground engagement team contributed significantly to Macquarie Primary School’s playground enhancement project, co-designing a brilliant outdoor learning space with students and staff. They dedicated over 120 volunteer hours and oversaw the construction of gardens, play spaces, planting forest, and a bush tucker garden. For their efforts, the team was recognised in the 2017 ACT public education awards.
The education sector involves huge numbers of parent volunteers who share their time and expertise to run school P&Cs and sporting teams. Parent volunteers are critical to the functioning of school ecosystems, helping to foster a culture of community within schools. Parent volunteers ensure carnivals, fetes and sporting events can take place in the Canberra region and that these events are accessible and fun.
Parent, family and community involvement in schools ensures that education is about more than just what takes place in the classroom. For example, volunteer Bev Crittall was recently awarded the 2018 friend of public education award at the ACT Australian Education Union public education awards. Bev was recognised, and not for the first time, for her outstanding work on behalf of the Garran school community, working tirelessly every day of the week as a volunteer in their canteen, helping to create a community atmosphere in many different ways.
Arts and culture are an integral part of the lives of individuals as well as the social and economic fabric of Canberra. The arts help to define our community’s identity and give expression to community values. Canberra’s arts and cultural sector has a strong community of volunteer workers. In 2016 17 per cent of ACT residents volunteered for the arts or helped artists or community groups with arts activities. There were more than 700 volunteers in artsACT funded organisations in 2016 such as the
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