Recipients of this year’s Resilient Australia national awards have been announced.
The Resilient Australia
Awards celebrates, shares and promotes initiatives that build and foster community resilience to disasters and emergencies. The Awards are sponsored by the Australian Government in partnership with the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience and the states and territories.
They are in the following categories:
- Collaboration and Partnership
- Research for Impact
- Business
- Community
- Government
- Local Government
- Mental Health and Wellbeing
- School
- Photography
Two standout Winners are:
Resilient Australia National Community Award
Community-led Flood Resilience on the Kurilpa
Peninsula (Brisbane) – Resilient Kurilpa
Resilient Kurilpa (RK) is a community-led, volunteer-run disaster resilience initiative based in the Kurilpa Peninsula of Brisbane (West End, South Brisbane and Highgate Hill). Formed after the 2022 floods, the network brings together
residents, neighbourhood organisations, apartment communities, and experts to build local capacity for flood preparedness, response, and recovery.
In 2023-24, with joint funding from the Australian and Queensland Governments, RK delivered a program that engaged over 500 residents directly and thousands more online. The project produced practical,
innovative tools including:
- A community-led flood website and Local Insights Blog (www.resilientkurilpa.com)
- An Apartment Toolkit with flood planning templates
- Information sessions, educational workshops and blog articles
- A 10 minute trigger film to motivate apartment body corporates into taking flood preparedness action freely available on our RK’s YouTube page - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d830c296XuM&t=196s
Resilient Australia National School Award
Our River - Richmond Agricultural Centre
Our River is a flood awareness program delivered to primary and secondary schools in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment. It includes understanding the sciences and history behind floods in the catchment, flood awareness education and a wellbeing creative element to ensure children can connect to the river in a positive way post floods.
Our River has been a project operated continuously by the Centre since 2022, and in 2024 the Centre partnered with the NSW Reconstruction Authority (NSW RA) to expand the program.
The program was originally designed to allow children to understand that floods are a natural/scientific event and to provide coping mechanisms to
support students during and post a flood event.
The expansion with NSW RA saw an increase in focus on flood preparedness, two Hackathon events where students designed an education campaign for their communities around flood preparedness, and an Indigenous communication program
for Aboriginal students in schools across the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley.
View all Winners and Finalists at: https://www.aidr.org.au/resources/resilient-australia-national-awards-2025-finalists