Braith (00:00):
Hi, I'm Braith and this is my story. I grew up in Tuross, and then I spent a bit of time in Dalmeny and Narooma, and then I've come back up here in Moruya.

Braith (00:15):
The fires were pretty crazy. It was just a strange thing to be involved in. Well, I was just sitting sort of down with all my mates and just having a good night, the night before New Year's Eve. And then we just, we saw something posted that the party that was happening, said it might be canceled. It was strange because that was sort of the end of year bang kind of thing. And everyone was looking forward to like, it's the summer holiday, kicking it off. And then it just gets flipped completely. And then it's like, Whoa, I wasn't expecting this to happen. And that was sort of when it went to New Year's day where it was like the worst with the fire swept straight through Cabargo.

Braith (00:52):
I sot of had the opportunity to leave but I didn't really feel like that was right. If someone needs help or I'm right here, this house is only 200 meters away from the evacuation center. So I just figured I'd stick it out.

Braith (01:08):
It's kind of like New Year's day started and kind of entered into this. Like 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 kind of reflect upon it yet. And I think it's, yeah, it was 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 working from home and doing those sorts of things that are, what are we doing? It's like too much to actually come to terms with each event.

Braith (01:42):
Work's been really interesting because I started off in February, which was while the fires were still on and I didn't necessarily get a break from the summer holidays. So it was kind of like leave school, the fires going on, I'm starting work. Kicked into like 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 a harmony between. There's all these organizations trying to do something everyone's really open to the ideas of, how do we actually just reach people? And 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 try to push these things forward, that are just fun.

Braith (02:23):
Skate park projects, live music events and things like that. Where that's what people need, that's like the medicine. So it's like if we're going to recover, it's like just give people a good time. Cause that's what people really want, get out of their heads and 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? And then evaluate it, and then actually doing the things that do make them happy and it actually matter to them and they do make sense.