Every year Red Cross Australia responds to emergencies and provides humanitarian assistance, whilst also assisting Australians prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.
During an emergency, Red Cross volunteers and staff work alongside police, fire and other emergency services, government and community partners to help ensure people who have been affected are treated with dignity and that their basic human needs are met. Until 2012 Red Cross Australia did not have GIS & Mapping Officers on its list of roles within the Incident Management Team structure. For the last two and a half years two of us living in Hobart have been providing mapping support for emergency activations in QLD, NSW, VIC and SA.
The National Office of Red Cross Australia has now decided that the GIS & Mapping Officer role should be created in the IMT structure. We are therefore looking for at least two people in each state (except Tasmania where we already have six people) to come on board as Red Cross volunteers. This will require a police check, child safe screening and completion of a number of mandatory online training modules which cover Red Cross Induction and Emergency Services training. Ideally each applicant will have at least five years GIS experience. We are currently using QGIS open source software which can be downloaded free of charge and there are online video tutorials for those unfamiliar with this package. Data collection in the field is via the Fulcrum App and the role requires the ability to accurately interpret, plot and analyse data from a variety of sources and then present the results of analysis in a clear and comprehensible form that meet established procedures and specifications.
