Length
02:50
Summary
When Emergency Recovery Victoria decommissioned its Echuca operational hub, local school kids jumped at the chance to recycle whatever they could cart away as part of their Hands on Learning program.
Transcript
Emily, Hands On Learning: So, I'm Emily from the Hands On Learning team and we're excited to get all these new building supplies.
Girl with a hat, Hands On Learning: … and we are putting it in the trailer and taking it back to school to build stuff.
Leah Sullivan, Manager, Contractor Field Operations, Emergency Recovery Victoria: We established our operations hub in Echuca in November 2022. This site had a series of buildings that facilitated flood recovery works across Echuca and the north-west of Victoria.
Kaine Butterworth, Regional Operations Manager, John Lyng Group: When I got the call to shut the site down, I was asked if I could find some places around town that might be interested in using the materials that we're pulling off site. So I went to one of the local schools and yeah they were overwhelmed with excitement to take on whatever they possibly could get.
Boy with baseball cap, Hands on Learning: There's about 16 of us. We go down every Thursday afternoon and we build stuff around the school.
Emily, Hands on Learning: So far at school we've made a Ga Ga Pit and a 9 Square.
Liv, Hands on Learning: Hi I'm Liv and we are collecting all this wood.
Boy with baseball cap, Hands on Learning: So this is our trailer at the moment we're filling it up and taking it around to the side of our school. Got some wood... got some wood.
Scott Trewhella, Community Engagement and Wellbeing, Echuca Primary School: So, the Hands On Learning program is something we've been involved with for about 5 years now. It's coordinated by Save the Children and we understand that not all children need to be in classrooms all the time, they need to be able to use their hands as well, so our plan is to get the kids out every Thursday do a number of projects, both maintenance around our school as well as community projects around the place. Emergency Recovery Victoria, they reached out to us and let us know that there was an opportunity to collect some of this as they were leaving the site. We jumped at the chance because it is one of those wonderful things that it'll stay in the community which is really important and our whole community was affected during that flood time and a lot of the kids that are here today, they were out sandbagging for 2 weeks, so they were really excited about seeing what's happened in the project and where we're heading next. What we're collecting today I think we've probably got 2 years of projects ahead of us now which is something that wouldn't normally happen. We'd be scrounging week by week to try and come up with things. Now we've got some great plans for what we've been able to collect today.
Leah Sullivan: Recovery takes time and requires us all to work together. While we're decommissioning the Echuca hub, ERV remains committed to supporting flood recovery across the state. We're really pleased we're recycling these building materials so that they continue to deliver positive outcomes to the Echuca community.
[Emergency Recovery Victoria logo]
[End transcript]
Updated