Video Transcription
Braith’s Story Coping with the stress | Bushfires Support
Hi, I’m Braith, and this is my story.
I grew up in Tross and then I spent a bit of time in Dalmatian Nuruma, and then I’ve come back up here to Maria.
The fires were pretty crazy. It was just a strange thing to be involved in. Well, I was just sitting down with all my mates, having a good night the night before New Year’s Eve, and we saw some post that the party was happening and said it might be cancelled. It was strange because that was sort of the end of year “bang” kind of thing that I was always looking forward to—like it’s the summer holiday kicking off—and then it just got flipped completely. You know, I wasn’t expecting this to happen.
That was sort of when it led to New Year’s Day, which was the worst, when the fire swept straight through my little van, like all the Cabargo. I sort of had the opportunity to leave, but I didn’t really feel like that was right. You know, if someone needs help or if I’m okay here… this house is only 200 meters away from the evacuation center, so I just figured I’d stick it out. [Music]
It’s kind of like New Year’s Day started and then it just entered into this “what’s going on?” and it’s still just been dragged on. Normal hasn’t been normal since then. So it’s not like you can reflect upon it yet. It was like one of those weird transitions where it wasn’t enough time to digest the fires before COVID started, to digest what’s actually going to happen with COVID, to then being like, “What are we doing?” You know, it’s like too much to actually come to terms with each event.
Work’s been really interesting because I started off in February, while the fires were still on, and I didn’t necessarily get a break from the summer holidays. I was kind of like, “Leave school, the fires are going on, I’m starting work.” I kicked into a full-time job, never been in that sort of environment before, and that’s where I noticed a lot of the opportunity arise with the bushfire recovery. It was almost like harmony between all these organizations trying to do something. Everyone was really open to the ideas of how do we actually just reach people. It’s kind of like, “Do what they want, just deliver something.”
It’s been really cool through my work because it’s kind of given me the opportunity to go and push these things forward—things that are just fun, like skatepark projects, live music events, and things like that, where that’s what people need. You know, that’s like the medicine. It’s like, if we’re going to recover, just give people a good time because that’s what people really want: to get out of their heads, socialize, and have something to look forward to.
What makes me hopeful is the idea that things can only get better. Everyone’s personally going to take a step back and kind of go, “Why am I doing that? Why does that matter?” Then evaluating and actually doing the things that do make them happy and that actually matter to them and make sense.
Video by headspace
