Gender and Disaster Australia

Why Gender Matters in a Disaster — Told Through Animation

Gender and Disaster Australia is the national leader working at the intersection of gender and disaster. Their training, Lessons in Disaster, is designed to increase capacity to identify, respond to, and prevent the harmful impacts of gendered expectations in disasters. Climate-related disasters and emergencies are becoming increasingly intense and frequent. It is more critical than ever to understand the impact of gendered expectations in disasters.

But how do you get people to sign up for training for an issue they don’t know exists, or are sceptical and asking, "Why is gender relevant here?”

The Challenge

Gender and Disaster Australia's audience — council staff, disaster personnel, emergency workers, decision-makers — thinks in operational risk and community safety, not gender equity. Anything alarmist, ideological or too highly feminised would lose them before the evidence got a hearing.

Emergency responders across Australia had told Gender and Disaster Australia directly: they needed better ways to talk about gender roles, gender-based violence and inclusion — without jargon, and without blame.

And because the training is free, every conversion was purely a communication issue. Frame gender as an operational blind spot that affects disaster outcomes — not an ideological position — and a sceptical sector becomes a bookable one.

The Solution

Four two-minute animations, built to do one job: reduce scepticism and drive bookings for Lessons in Disaster.

Every creative decision served the tone brief — clear, plain language, evidence-based, assured, warm. Characters and settings grounded in real disaster and emergency contexts, designed to resonate with everyone watching. The line-drawing style was chosen deliberately: mature, clean, and able to represent a diverse range of people quickly and effectively. In two minutes, a viewer sees the full breadth of the community they serve — the reality of who's affected when disaster hits.

The Result

In May 2026, Does Safety Feel the Same for Everyone? — one of the four animations — won Highly Commended in the Readiness & Resilience category at the 2026 Emergency Media and Public Affairs Awards. Recognition from the emergency communications sector itself: the exact audience these animations were built to persuade.

Gender and Disaster Australia now has a suite of persuasive assets for its Lessons in Disaster training. Working the homepage, the conference booth, the keynote, the business development meeting — and everywhere it goes, it does the hardest job first: answering "why is gender relevant here?" before anyone has to ask it out loud.

Every professional who moves from sceptical to curious is one more person walking into a disaster with fewer blind spots — better prepared to see who's at risk, who's carrying the load, and who's falling through the gaps. That's the real outcome: communities where more people are seen, heard and supported when disaster hits.

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