Building Resilience Through Connection

Building true resilience isn’t just about preparing for disasters. It’s about recognising the social fault lines that disasters expose — including isolation — and working to close those gaps with empathy, respect, and practical action.

Author: Belinda Young

At Mums of the Hills, our mission has always been clear: to reduce isolation and strengthen community connection. We know our strength isn’t in running formal disaster recovery centres — it’s in our network. When emergencies happen, we lean on trusted relationships to quickly connect people with the resources, services, and support they need. That’s why I recently attended a one-day workshop hosted by Gender and Disaster Australia (GADAus): to explore how we can be even more effective at recognising the needs of our most vulnerable community members, and how we can meet those needs in socially and culturally sensitive ways. We also wanted to identify opportunities to collaborate with GADAus, whose research is reshaping the future of community-led resilience.

The workshop was an eye-opening experience that confirmed something many of us intuitively know but don’t always name: gender plays a significant role in how people experience, respond to, and recover from disasters.

Disasters don't discriminate — but our society does. And when a disaster hits, the ripple effects of existing inequalities become even more visible.

At the workshop, we explored how traditional gender expectations can create invisible risks during emergencies. Men are often expected to "tough it out" — to lead, protect, rebuild — while suppressing any vulnerability. Women, meanwhile, are expected to nurture others, provide emotional support, and somehow hold families and communities together even when their own needs are immense.

Research presented by GADAus was sobering. After major disasters like Black Saturday and the Christchurch earthquake, there was a sharp rise in family violence, as the stress and trauma of survival collided with rigid gender norms. In the chaos and upheaval, women’s safety, voices, and wellbeing were often sidelined.

It was also clear that gender diversity matters. People who don't fit neatly into traditional male or female roles — including LGBTQIA+ individuals — can face extra layers of discrimination or invisibility in disaster response and recovery systems.

Another important layer discussed was the experience of people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. For CALD groups, disasters can multiply existing barriers — such as language differences, lack of accessible information, cultural misunderstandings, and fear of authorities — making it even harder to access support or feel safe during recovery. Gendered expectations within different cultural contexts also shape how men and women from CALD backgrounds experience disasters, often in ways that emergency services are not trained or equipped to recognise. Building resilience must include culturally sensitive approaches that honour diversity, amplify CALD voices, and address systemic barriers before, during, and after emergencies.

At Mums of the Hills, our work is about connection — before, during, and after crisis. It's about ensuring that in times of chaos, no one feels invisible, alone, or cut off from help. Workshops like this help us sharpen our ability to break through the isolation that so often deepens after disaster: by listening carefully, responding respectfully, and weaving stronger threads of support across our community.

One of the strongest takeaways for me was this: building true resilience isn’t just about preparing for bushfires, floods, or pandemics. It’s about recognising the social fault lines that disasters expose — including isolation — and working to close those gaps with empathy, respect, and practical action.

Gender — and culture — are not side issues when it comes to disaster resilience. They are central. And when we design for equity, inclusion, and connection, we build communities that not only survive hard times — they recover together.

Real resilience is something we build together — when every voice is heard, and every need is respected.