The ICoE’s “Resilience Toolbox” website has been developed for the public, community and private sectors to collaborate on tools that engage, empower and enhance the resilience of communities in the face of turbulent change.

One of the biggest challenges for practitioners and researchers working in the field of resilience is developing a set of meaningful activities that build resilient communities: What should we be doing and how should we be doing it?

The Resilience Toolbox wants to serve as a vehicle to share ideas and resources for those trying to solve this challenge. Resilience themes are divided into the categories of the four recovery environments – Social, Built, Natural and Economic – as well as section for specific hazards.

Users have the opportunity to collaborate with each other and access a growing list of practical tools and applied research, which are all offered here for access and adaptation for free under a Creative Commons license. Users can share their experiences and thoughts with others in order for the community to move resilience thinking and action in a more positive direction. Collaboration sparks new ideas and reduces the danger of wasteful reinvention of wheels.

The Resilience Toolbox is a product of Wellington’s “IRDR International Centre of Excellence in Community Resilience“. Stewarded by the Wellington Region Emergency Management Office WREMO and Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research (Director: David Johnston) it tries to answer the question, “How can communities make themselves resilient to future disasters?” See http://www.getprepared.org.nz/excellence

This is in line with the overall goal of the IRDR programme to provide scientific evidence for better answering the ‘how’ challenge in a practical and meaningful way. One of the ways this is achieved is by supporting strong collaborations between practitioners and researchers that are working to build more resilient communities.

For more information, see: http://www.resiliencetoolbox.org/