Backyard table; golden leaves. Addi Road autumn in Marrickville. So much rain the wood of the old table is soaked right through. More than a moment’s silence can be found here. Our hearts and minds with friends in Lismore and all those flood-affected at this time.
We’ve been working with T4A – Turbans 4 Australia and Good360 Australia on relief work over the last month. We know we’re only three small charities coming together in a much larger struggle, but we believe every little bit helps. We know too that more rain and flooding now is a real heartbreaker after all the recovery work that has only just started. How much more suffering and trauma can people take?
A part of the answer lies with something Amar Singh of Turbans 4 Australia mentioned at our first meeting together. As soon as Turbans began their flood relief work up north, he’d been deeply moved by how communities on the south coast had come to him, asking what that they could do for people caught up in the floods: “They are saying to me, ‘You helped us during the fires. How can we pay it forward?’”
Everybody in Australia has been witness to how much heroism, love and effort the communities around Lismore and Byron Bay have put in to saving one another while the government and bureaucracies have dithered. Charity and civil society groups like ours have plugged into that powerful and necessary grassroots action. So have many other supportive communities and individuals, among them those devastated by the bushfires not so long ago.
Despite the horrors of it happening all over again, the seeming endlessness of it, the rains will eventually ease and stop, and the floodwaters recede. We will keep working with Turbans 4 Australia and Good360 Australia – and all our connections and communities out there – to help as many people as we can push through this climate crisis disaster.
When the rains do stop, we will dust off the fallen flowers from the old wooden table that sits in the yard behind our office. We will meet there beneath the tree to figure out our next steps and respond to what is asked of us. Here’s to some dry, bright winter days ahead and the work we will continue to do together.
DETAILS for donating to Addi Road’s flood appeal work can be found here.