A Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) Command in Sydney’s inner west is trialling a concept to engage cultural communities about residential fire dangers, in their own languages, at public information sessions.
FRNSW’s Metropolitan East 3, which covers the inner west of Sydney, held a successful engagement session last week with around three-dozen members of its local Chinese-Australian community at Burwood Park.
Addressed in Mandarin and Cantonese
The crowd was addressed in Mandarin and Cantonese by Firefighter, Jimmyson Chan
A crew from Burwood Fire Station demonstrated why fire blankets and not water should be used to extinguish kitchen fires, and it reinforced the life-saving values of working smoke alarms.
The crowd was addressed in Mandarin and Cantonese by Firefighter, Jimmyson Chan, and the local residents had the opportunity to receive Chinese-language pamphlets outlining home fire safety advice.
The foreign language engagement session was the idea of Zone Commander, Josh Turner, who is keen to continue the program for other prominent cultures in the inner west, including the Greek and Malaysian communities.
Serving the Chinese-Australian community
“We’ve developed a great partnership with Burwood Council,” Supt Turner said, “We have a very large Chinese-Australian community in Burwood and we’ve been looking at ways to share our home fire safety messages.”
“We’ve been wanting to educate those who have emigrated recently and even their parents, who they’ve brought over since. Having translators on board, we’ve been able to go straight to the community groups and deliver those messages direct to Chinese-Australian residents.”
“Hopefully, the end result is we have fewer fires and we save lives. The Chinese-Australian community is rightfully proud of its cooking prowess, for example, so if we can help prevent kitchen fires and promote the installation of working smoke alarms, we can avoid tragic outcomes.”
“By engaging local residents in Mandarin and Cantonese, we can also better understand the communities we serve.”
