Email

Emergency services receive recruitment grant

Posted November 30, 2008 14:02:00

A new Federal Government grant will boost the number of emergency service volunteers in the ACT.

The Australian Red Cross will be among three other Canberra agencies to share in $77,000 from the National Emergency Volunteer Support Fund aimed at gaining more volunteers.

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland says the funding will help train highly qualified recruits.

"The modern volunteering organisations have very sophisticated training programs and accreditation programs so the modern volunteer here in Australia is more often than not highly skilled in their particular area," he said.

The ACT Emergency Service Agency will receive funding for recruiting volunteers with a second language.

Over $30,000 will go towards increasing the number of volunteers and providing the community with information in different languages.

Gregor Manson from the Emergency Service Agency says the funding will help attract a broad range of people.

"By involving volunteers to be members of our organisation is one sure way to ensure that we get the messages into the communities that we don't normally target so this is very very important to us," he said.

Tags: community-and-society, disasters-and-accidents, relief-and-aid-organisations, government-and-politics, federal-government, volunteers, australia, act, canberra-2600