‘We help each other’: Stories and experiences of disaster management and preparedness in Aboriginal communities in Darwin

In 2015, the Northern Territory Emergency Services (NTEMS) funded a research project concerned with the strategies employed by housed and homeless Aboriginal people in Darwin when responding to emergency situations. These groups represented vulnerable populations which were catered for within existing Territory based Emergency Management Plans, but had not previously been consulted about their experiences of cyclones or other emergency events. This paper details some of the outcomes of this research as it was carried out by the Ground Up team at the Northern Institute in partnership with the Australian Red Cross and Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation. It focuses on stories and experiences of living with cyclones and other emergency events as told by Indigenous project participants, as well as on policy and service delivery implications for government and non-government organisations. Drawing on these accounts, we suggest it is productive to recognise resilience as a collective achievement, which arises in appropriate forms of partnering and collaboration between local Indigenous people and NT Emergency Services.