From The Embers – The Voices of Communities in Danger

Courtesy of Abe Killian (CBAA)

In 2019/2020 Australia experienced catastrophic bushfires that affected every state. Early in 2020, The Community Broadcaster's Association of Australia (CBAA) created a narrative documentary radio series & podcast: From the Embers.

The nine-episode series drew on unique resources - the local community radio stations and a core team of producers connected to community radio.

With Community Radio having taken a huge part in keeping communities informed of what seemed like, and for some was, the impending firestorm, we saw a place to tell stories from communities in their own words.

 With the support of the Paul Ramsey Institute and the Judith Nielsen Institute, producers were embedded in each community, conducting field recordings and in-person interviews. The majority of these were done in the weeks after the fires were extinguished and COVID-19 restrictions were slowly coming into force, producing pieces of extraordinary poignancy. Utilising the voices and the emotions of people, one of the key points many of them made was that their story had only been told through the filter of mainstream media, and this was the first time their voices were truly heard.

The award-winning series has inspired an anthology, a documentary and a follow up series - From the Embers 2: Phoenix - coming in 2022.

https://www.cbaa.org.au/about