“I can see the silver lining behind the cloud” Dr Jean Renouf from Plan C, Northern Rivers connects with Blue Mountains communities

Residents, community leaders, Council representatives and emergency services personnel recently came together in Springwood, Blackheath and the Southern Highlands to hear Dr Jean Renouf, CEO and Founder of Plan C Northern Rivers speak about resilience, finding meaning in community work and how his region is rising to meet the challenges posed by disasters and the impacts of climate change.  

Dr Jean Renouf speaks to workshop attendees at the Springwood Sports Club.

Dr Renouf’s visit came about as a result of a partnership between the community organisations of Plan C, the Blackheath Area Neighbourhood Centre, Habitat for Humanity and Resilient Villages.  

After spending 15 years working internationally in high conflict and war zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Congo, Yemen, Haiti and North Korea among many other countries, Dr Renouf founded Plan C (formerly known as Resilient Byron) in 2009 with the aim of building community resilience in the face of challenges such as disasters.

Aside from his role as CEO of Plan C, Dr Renouf is also a lecturer at Southern Cross University, a firefighter with Fire and Rescue NSW and a father of two young boys. 

Attendees at Jean Renouf’s workshop in Buxton, Southern Highlands

Since flooding devastated the Northern Rivers region in February 2022, Plan C has delivered over 70 community resilience workshops on topics such as self care, disaster preparedness, emergency communications, food security, water security, energy security, what to do when there are power outages, as well as psychological first aid. 

This was the first time that Dr Renouf had been to the Blue Mountains and Southern Highlands regions to deliver similar workshops.

Through his presentation Dr Renouf reflected on what patterns and phases he has seen occur even in the midst of chaos and crisis and on what he sees as our collective response to the climate crisis.

Cathy Rood from the Blackheath Area Neighbourhood settles in to the homey space created for the Blackheath workshop.

When asked if he has been seeing any reoccurring themes in disaster affected communities he commented; “What’s struck me is that whether its the Northern Rivers or other parts of Australia or the Blue Mountains - we get it. We understand that things are changing fast, the climate crisis, the extinction rate, the plastic pollution and all the different challenges that we face… we are coming together - members of the community, emergency services personnel, Council staff, institutions, different levels of government, to make sense of what’s happening to learn from each other and to prepare together. 

Event organisers Claire Absolum, Joanna Brown and Renee Vincent from Resilient Villages.

So even though the challenges that we face are quite unprecedented and scary, I have a sense of hope that we’re getting it, we’re doing the work together, we’re heading in the right direction and yes its going to be hard and yes we’re going to fall but we’re holding each other and we can and we are growing from these challenges. I can see the silver lining behind the cloud”. 

The concept of post traumatic growth was also talked about in the session with Dr Renouf saying that despite the magnitude of what communities are facing, he is seeing individuals and groups rise to the challenge and ultimately gain from the experience; “whether its small challenges that we have in our every day life or big disruptive events like disasters, we can grow from these events and be more authentic in the way we live”. 

To find out more about Plan C Northern Rivers go to:  https://www.planc.org.au