Resilience Fund supporting Auckland Emergency Management’s flood and storm storybooks for tamariki

The grant provided to Auckland Emergency Management will support their multi-lingual storybook project in Hindi, Chinese, Samoan and Te Reo Māori.


Auckland Emergency Management is one of eight successful recipients of this year’s Civil Defence Emergency Management Resilience Fund grant.

The grant provided to Auckland Emergency Management will support their multi-lingual childrens storybook project.

In 2022, the Resilience Fund provided initial funding to Auckland Emergency Management to develop four multi-lingual story books in Hindi, Chinese, Samoan and Te Reo Māori, about floods and storms.

This years, Resilience Fund grant will allow the team to digitise and improve the book's accessibility for communities across Tāmaki Makaura and Aotearoa.

Melanie Hutton, Head of Resilience, Auckland Emergency Managemnet Group, says what’s really special about the books is that the team worked collaboratively alongside children to develop each story.

“These books were written by children for children and the team actively worked with a diverse range of children. Each of the storybooks draws on cultural elements to develop stories relevant to our tamariki.

“We’re thrilled to have received the grant which is allowing us to share these wonderful stories far and wide. It means that the books will be accessed both online and in accessible formats such as braille and New Zealand Sign Language.

“This will help us connect with our communities to encourage them to start thinking about emergencies and being prepared, but it will also help facilitate parents and teachers’ conversations with tamariki.

These books will be used across schools, libraries and youth groups as well as accessible online for kids to download to read and learn more about storms and cultures in Aotearoa.

“Our next steps will be converting the books into narrated e-books with audio sound effects like wind and rain. Once this is complete, we’ll then begin translating the books into accessible formats,” says Melanie. We expect the e-books to be available online in 2024.

Find out more about Auckland Emergency Management Children’s book project

 

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be profiling the other successful projects supported by the Resilience Fund.

Read about the other projects supported by the Resilience Fund:


Published: Sep 11, 2023, 9:52 AM