Re: Neighbourhood Support
Love thy neighbour - or at least meet them!
The message from Patrick Creasey, Head of Neighbourhood Support, rings loud and clear ? don?t wait until disaster strikes to meet your neighbour!
Patrick?s advice to others:
- Read Geoffrey Rice?s book Black November ? it not only gives a great insight into how communities worked together during the 1918 pandemic, it also provides some useful lessons for today!
- Look to you and yours ? make sure your family are safe and well and then see what you can do to help your neighbours
- Make sure you have good and up-to-date supplies of food, water and medicine
- Know your neighbour, their neighbour and so on ? swap contact details
- Explore new ways to communicate ? in a pandemic technology may let us all down
- Don?t be paranoid but do be prepared!
?It may not seem cool to join your local Neighbourhood Support group, but it?s not about being cool, it?s about staying safe. That applies to all age groups ? joining a NS group is like taking out an insurance policy,? says Patrick.
As a pandemic influenza epidemic looks increasingly inevitable, Patrick believes now more than ever it is time to look at neighbourhoods banding together as the ?first-line of defence?.
Neighbourhood Support has 1900 members in the Christchurch and Banks Peninsula area. Its original focus of crime prevention has been widened to include issues relating to civil defence and a pandemic outbreak and they are working with many other groups to formulate an effective plan and share information.
?More and more Neighbourhood Support groups are being set up as people realise the importance of being prepared and getting to know your neighbours.?
?In the 1918 epidemic, the people that survived were those that worked together as neighbours and the community. Everyone should read Geoffrey Rice?s
Black November ? there are many lessons to be learnt from his book.?
?One of the things we do first when setting up our groups is to encourage people to get to know their neighbours. It seems over the years this sort of familiarity or love thy neighbour mentality has become a dying art. This is not only sad, but dangerous,? he says.
He remembers well the time he set up a new group in a small cul de sac in Papanui. ?There were 12 people at the meeting. I ended up introducing two ladies who lived two doors away from each other, one had lived in the street for 12 years and the other 7 years ? this was the first time they had met!?
It is time, says Patrick, that the barriers were brought down and people started making the time to get to know their neighbours and swap contact details. Neighbourhood support groups keep a master list of contact details, special needs and those in the neighbourhood with special skills, which are distributed to the group. Those in groups who have email addresses can subscribe to Ewatch. Currently, crime information is sent out weekly but this network can also be used to pass on all sorts of relevant information.
?Our groups are in the best position to identify those around them that are most in need of assistance, particularly the elderly and those living alone.?
?In the case of a pandemic we are all going to have think beyond medical resources that will be swamped and to community resources. Our homes will become the front line of defence,? he says.
From a personal perspective, Patrick believes he is well prepared for a pandemic ? he has good supplies of food and water, medicine and most importantly an excellent neighbourhood support network at his back door.
To find out more about Neighbourhood Support phone Patrick on 03 378 0437 or email canterburyns@paradise.net.nz.
You can download a copy of the
Community Planning Guide.pdf prepared by the Canterbury Civil Defence Emergency Management Group and Local Government New Zealand in conjunction with the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, to help you with your planning or go to their website
www.civildefence.govt.nz for more information.
http://www.fluinfo.org.nz/psite/page.aspx?sc=71
