From Awareness to Action: How New Zealand Red Cross is Helping Communities Get Good and Ready for Emergencies

Across Aotearoa New Zealand, communities face a variety of natural hazards, including earthquakes, floods, severe storms, landslides, tsunami, and volcanic activity. While awareness of these hazards is generally high, turning awareness into meaningful preparedness action remains a challenge.

To help address this, New Zealand Red Cross refreshed its national preparedness programme, Good and Ready, with a simple goal: help people take practical preparedness actions before emergencies happen. The programme is built on an evidence-informed behaviour change approach and delivers three simple preparedness steps through volunteers, community groups, workplaces, and local partnerships.

Keeping preparedness simple

One of the key lessons from our work is that preparedness messages need to be simple, practical, and easy to remember.

Good and Ready focuses on three actions:

1. Know Your Hazards
   People learn about the hazards most likely to affect where they live, work, and spend time. Understanding local risks helps make preparedness personally relevant.
2. Make a Plan
   Participants develop a simple emergency plan for their household or support network. Rather than striving for perfection, the programme encourages people to start the planning conversation and review it regularly.
3. Share Your Plan
   Participants are encouraged to share their plan with a trusted friend, neighbour, whānau member, colleague, or community contact. This “Good and Ready Buddy” approach strengthens social connections and reinforces preparedness behaviours.

The programme recognises that preparedness is not only about supplies and survival kits. It is also about relationships, communication, and community connectedness.

A volunteer-led community model

Good and Ready is delivered through New Zealand Red Cross volunteers working alongside communities throughout the country.

Local volunteers facilitate workshops, lead community conversations, support preparedness events, and help tailor discussions to local hazards and community needs. The programme has also developed targeted approaches for older adults and people with disabilities, CALD communities including migrants and former refugees, low-income households and communities exposed to higher levels of natural hazard risk.

This local delivery model helps ensure preparedness conversations remain relevant, practical, and culturally appropriate.

Using digital tools to reinforce preparedness

To complement face-to-face engagement, New Zealand Red Cross developed a series of short Good and Ready videos to reinforce the programme’s core messages and make preparedness information more accessible.

The video series includes:

Introduction to Good & Ready

Step 1: Know Your Hazards

Step 2: Make a Plan

Step 3: Share Your Plan

The videos are used before and after workshops, through social media channels, and as tools that volunteers can share directly with communities.

Lessons learned

Through the continued development of Good and Ready, several lessons have emerged that may be relevant for other National Societies:

Simplicity matters

Preparedness programmes can sometimes overwhelm people with information. Focusing on a small number of practical actions makes it easier for people to take the first step.

Behaviour change is more important than awareness alone

Many people already know hazards exist. The challenge is supporting action. Framing preparedness around achievable tasks helps bridge the gap between knowledge and action.

Social connections increase resilience

Encouraging participants to share plans with others creates accountability, strengthens support networks, and contributes to community resilience.

Volunteers are trusted messengers

Local volunteers play a critical role in helping communities engage with preparedness in ways that feel relevant and accessible.

Preparedness should be adaptable

Every community experiences risk differently. Local adaptation is essential for meaningful engagement and long-term preparedness outcomes. Training volunteers who are able to take the programme to their communities is important to reach populations that are disproportionally affected when disasters and emergencies occur.

Looking ahead

New Zealand Red Cross continues to evolve Good and Ready through community feedback, volunteer leadership, and partnerships across the emergency management and resilience sector.

While hazards may differ from country to country, the principle remains the same: preparedness should be simple, practical, and achievable. By helping people understand their risks, make a plan, and strengthen their community connections, we can support more households to become ready before disaster strikes.