Transcript
[Image of Emergency Recovery Victoria logo]
[Images of children with cameras walking around a bush setting taking photographs]
Tiana Felmingham, co-founder, Sarsfield Snaps: Sarsfield was one of the first communities impacted by the Black Summer fires which hit our community around the 30th of December in 2019. It was over half the community that actually saw flames at our houses. It was, yeah, one in 4 that were lost in total.
[Image of fire ravaged bush setting]
And I was taking photos in the days following and thought gee it would be so good for my kids to be able to have the opportunity to take photos as well. And the more I thought about it the more I thought, yeah, actually wouldn't it be awesome for all the kids in Sarsfield to have their own cameras and be able to take lots of photos of things that were important to them. And so we approached a few different camera companies, because people were donating really weird things at the time, and we had one company come back and donate 20 cameras and it kind of started from there.
[Image of Tiana with a child showing how to use a camera]
So this time when you do it press the button try to keep your finger out.
Henry, photographer, Sarsfield Snaps: from the first week after the fires, everything was pitch black. You couldn't see anything. It was just grey, white, a lot of black, occasionally some red in there. And every now and then you would see a nice blue or green thing that would really pop out and signal to you that this is not the end of it. There's going to be growth again.
Hunter, photographer, Sarsfield Snaps: I never took a picture in my life before Sarsfield Snaps. It was exciting for me, because, just so other people could see what I took pictures of. I think from here I'm going to take pictures for the rest of my life.
Tiana: When you're part of the recovery process, often adults are making the decisions the whole way along, and for good reason.
[Image of emergency officials having a meeting]
There's a lot of trauma at the time. But one of the things that falls away is the opportunity for children to be involved in decisions that are affecting them and affecting their recovery experience as well. And it became apparent pretty quickly that there was nothing available to support children. So the project...it's actually an opportunity for children and young people in our community to be able to contribute to the recovery process and have their voices heard.
Eliana, photographer, Sarsfield Snaps: I got my camera from the Sarsfield Snaps group. It made me happy because I don't normally get to take pictures of stuff when I didn't have a camera and it's nice come together in a group and look at the photos.
Tiana: One of the first things that came out of the project was a calendar.
Eliza, photographer, Sarsfield Snaps: First was the calendar, and the calendar was exciting. I used the calendar myself so I had it in my cupboard and I would just look at the photos and flip through it every now and again.
Tiana: And the photographers were able to choose their photos, the photos that they wanted to see in the calendar. And one of the things that happened with that first calendar is it was sent to every single household in Sarsfield. It meant, as a project, we were involving the whole community even if they didn't have family members associated to the project in the beginning. We got feedback from older members in the community who were really excited to start to see the activity and the actions that were happening with young people in the community, so it started to connect young people and older people in the community that had never met. It was just so exciting to get that kind of feedback.
Eliza: And then the book came next and that was so exciting because I wrote the introduction so that was fun to do, and it was just nice to see who did the photos as well and to see their little quotes down the bottom.
[Image of large group gathering for book launch party]
Tiana: And we had no idea that all of these other things would then cascade in the years following... other calendars, exhibitions that happened here locally and then there was another exhibition down in Melbourne. I think that the totals were around 500,000 people that ended up looking at those images over the busiest period of the summer. Prior to the fires, Sarsfield was a community... people didn't really know each other very well. The fires happened and then, you know we talk often in recovery around rebuilding a community and I would actually probably more accurately describe Sarsfield as building from scratch. For the photographers who were participating in the project there are around 15 schools that they were all spread out across and none of them knew each other. So it was actually a really exciting time to bring the young people and children from so many different families into the one place and give them an opportunity to actually connect with each other for the first time. And those children and young people are still mates now. They're all still friends now and they all know each other and it's completely changed the landscape of our community I think in terms of social cohesion.
Eliza: We all kind of just arrived, we didn't know who we were going to expect, and we just sat down and talked and showed photos to each other, chose photos for activities and stuff.
Henry: Yeah a few friends we knew, probably people from our street at most, which were doing it. And then after that just after COVID we had this big meeting with about 25 of the kids, most of them, I met a lot of friends that day.
Tiana: One of the main things I think about is why this project was important in the first place. And, in terms of the recovery process, having an avenue for children and young people to be involved is just so important for their long-term well-being. And having the opportunity to give them a platform where they're celebrated really is a crucial part of their recovery process. I think also just acknowledging the power dynamics that exist in the recovery process, whether that sits within organisations to community or whether that's adults in the community to children, acknowledging those power dynamics exist and trying to push against them has just been so important throughout this project.
[Child holding up a sign Sarsfield Snaps by Sarsfield Kids project]
[Emergency Recovery Victoria logo]
[End transcript]
Updated