When Radwa Alobaid and her husband bought a house in Australia last year, they felt a sense of safety they hadn’t experienced since before the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.
“I wasn’t scared or worried about bombs. I was waking up in the morning feeling relaxed,” the mother of seven told SBS News.
Ms Alobaid's previous home, in Homs in western Syria, was bombed after the family fled to Jordan, where they took refuge before coming to Australia in 2016.
Moving into a home in Adelaide’s north helped her regain her confidence and relax into the routines of life again.
But just six months later, her newfound stability was challenged by a fire that began in the lounge room wall.
It destroyed a large part of the living space and caused a section of roof to cave in.
“This upset me because it reminded [me] of the old trauma that started in the war,” Ms Alobaid says.
“It was a very difficult time for me and my family because we didn’t have any experience of [house fires]. It’s different in Syria, because the concrete would not easily burn down in a house fire, maybe from a bomb or the war, but the houses would not easily burn down from fire.
Understanding the materials used to make and furnish Australian homes is one of the many differences that can put new migrants at a disadvantage when it comes to fire safety.
While the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service says there is no statistical data to show migrant communities are more at risk than the general population, their awareness of home fire safety is lower than average.
Health and safety information delivered in English through traditional channels can also miss the mark.
Now, the South Australian-based Australian Refugee Association has collaborated with the University of Adelaide to develop safety resources with a new approach.
Radwa Alobaid (second from left) with her family in Adelaide. Source: SBS News
Instead of using a top-down messaging strategy, they asked migrants what safety concerns they had, and created a ground-up approach from there.
Three in-language videos have been created about fire and road safety based on the real-life experiences of new migrants.
Ms Alobaid's house fire forms the basis of one of the videos.
“This project may well save lives in the future,” SA Metropolitan Fire Service community engagement officer Philip Evans says.
Dr Scott Hanson-Easey from the University of Adelaide’s school of public health helped developed the initiative.
“People like to see their own culture represented and speaking to them,” Dr Hanson-Easey says.
“When that happens, people listen and feel respected, and people often take the information and use the information to be safer.”
Community educator Faith Khuplian’s experience of feeling at a loss when another driver blamed her when he hit her car is included in a Burmese Chin video on driver safety.
Faith Khuplian Source: SBS News
“I had no clue of what to do at that time because I never got the information,” Ms Khuplain says.
“Yes, I read a bit of English, but at the same time, it was really hard for me to know what to do at that point.”
Ms Khuplain found other community members also lacked knowledge about Australian road rules and driver responsibilities.
She says some migrants don’t typically go to a website or brochure to get safety information.
“They just ask their uncle, their aunty, or their cousin or friends about how to get a driver’s licence, and from that information, it’s very little knowledge [you gain],” she says.
“Now we have this [video] available with community members who speak their own language. They can understand the dialect and they can relate because it’s culturally appropriate.”
Dr Hanson-Easey says the ground-up model used for the videos' creation could be widely applied to communicate important safety information wherever government messaging is failing to penetrate.
“When it’s not done properly, and communities aren’t working together with government or with other agencies, things go particularly wrong,” he says.
