“THIS ISN’T JUST A DROUGHT, IT’S A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS”

Edwina Robertson’s fight for drought-affected Australians.

“I grew up on a cattle farm in Toowoomba, so I know this life very well. We had droughts when I was a kid, but the longest one was three months, short by today’s standards. I remember one particular time when the rain came; it was two days after Christmas and we all ran outside when we heard the drops. It was amazing, none of us could quite believe it. I still remember the feeling of the rain on my skin after so long without it.

I created the fundraiser One Bucket because I wanted to let people know about the drought. As I was travelling around the country for my work as a wedding photographer, I saw its devastating effects firsthand. But I wasn’t reading anything about it in mainstream media. I thought, ‘This stuff needs to be on the front page.’ So I started One Bucket to get the word out that people are really struggling. Within two weeks of coming up with the idea, I was on the road, travelling through New South Wales and putting a face to the drought. It’s hard to know what’s going on unless you see it, so that’s what I set out to do. Drought is more than just dead livestock and dry land, it’s entire towns without money. It’s families under enormous pressure.

In two months, I’ve travelled 16,000 kilometres in the car. And honestly, I haven’t even covered a quarter of the state. But I’ve seen a lot. People ask me if the drought is as bad as they think it is. And I say, ‘No, it’s 10 times worse.’ You cannot understand the emotional toll, the financial hardship, the amount of endurance it takes to wait out a drought. It’s all-consuming, it takes over everything you do. And a lot of farmers are very proud people, they don’t want to tell you how hard it is. So they soften it and you don’t get the full picture of how difficult things really are.

Women, in particular, are negatively affected by the drought. They are the ones keeping families together, so the mental and emotional toll is often worse for them. Domestic violence increases, too. [A 2013 study by the University of California, Berkeley found reports of domestic violence spike in Australia during droughts.] While I haven’t seen any of this myself, I have been told it’s happening. That said, most families I’ve seen are incredibly strong.

The drought affects everything you do. For families who have livestock, they need to feed them throughout the day instead of just once a day, to ensure adequate nutrition. So that becomes a full-time job at a time of year when it’s usually quite slow and they can focus on other things like maintenance or improvements. Then there are families who only have crops. They’ve planted crops several months ago, but nothing has grown without rain. They’ve got so much time on their hands because they have nothing. They have no income coming in, but still have all these bills to pay. Then there’s the knock-on effect of all of this: take a town like Coonabarabran for instance, where they’re on Level 6 emergency water restrictions. Imagine owning a business that relies on water in a town like that – a nursery, even a cafe. You’re not going to be operating like normal. So it affects absolutely everything.

As much as this has become a mission for me, I have to admit: I am mentally and emotionally exhausted. Some of the stuff I’ve seen has taken a huge toll on me. This has gone beyond a drought problem, it’s a humanitarian crisis. People are showering at service stations because they don’t have water at home. Women are ripping up sheets to use as pads. Children as young as four are being kept home from school and preschool to help their families on the farm. Nobody deserves to live like that. Seeing people live in such challenging conditions, knowing that nobody can fix the problem altogether – that is, nobody can make it rain – has been really tough. I’m trying my best but the problem is huge and complex.

If I could tell people one thing about droughts, it’d be that no matter how well prepared you are, they can be relentless. If you live in the city, help out farmers by buying Australian products. Even if it rains tomorrow, the financial effects of this drought will linger for many years. And if you’re on holidays in a rural area, don’t stop at a service station on the highway; go into a town and buy a cup of coffee. Spend some money

” in small towns, because truly, every dollar helps.

E