Army of volunteers needed to help South West community during unpredictable emergencies

The Salvation Army have embarked on a 1000-person nation-wide recruitment drive to be on call for potential natural disasters.

About 200 of these will be needed in Western Australia, with a portion of those allocated to the South West in the wake of recent extreme weather events in Bunbury.

Salvo’s disaster recovery coordinator Christine Smith said the organisation was on the look out for who those helpers might be in times of crisis.

“Given the increased risks for bushfire in the coming months, and the densely populated trees down in the South West, that certainly is a risk area that we need to be aware of,” she said.

“The need for volunteers in the South West is great because the risk of disaster and emergency events happening is pretty much most of the year.

“We really need people with a range of skills, different ages and people skills to be able to support our emergency services and communities that are impacted by emergencies happening on the ground.

“We need to plan for those emergency events and ensure that our people are trained, that they’re skilled in terms of managing emergency events and knowing how to talk to people who might be in a state of shock after an emergency event.”

Mrs Smith said Salvation Army volunteers for disaster recovery could expect to help out by providing food, drink and comfort to community members and first responders as well as administration tasks behind the scenes.

“The hope is that we can get some volunteers who are dedicated and passionate and want to make a huge difference during a time of disaster, and be readily available and prepared themselves to support as much as we can, in a planned way,” she said.