Women test their rescue skills

FEMALE Victorian State Emergency Services (VICSES) volunteers from Geelong, the Bellarine, the Surf Coast and beyond joined forces as part of a Victoria-wide training exercise on Saturday.

Women in Rescue (WIR) was established in 2018 for female volunteers by female volunteers and this year’s event was the largest yet, with the Barwon South West WIR one of six locations featuring a total of 250 participants – twice as many than in 2023.

At the VICSES Geelong regional headquarters in Bell Park, about 20 volunteers from the Winchelsea, Bellarine, Corio, Swan Hill and Bendigo units and the Barwon South West regional unit took part in the targeted training event, which is designed to celebrate women in emergency operations, to get hands on with the tools and equipment, share rescue skills and have fun in a safe and supportive environment.

Saturday’s event focused on the practical components of rescue operations.

Several specialised training exercises were set up to cover the diverse capabilities that VICSES volunteers require during a range of different emergencies.

Volunteers tackled scenarios including casualty handling techniques, incident management work, and learning how to complete field observations to provide information back to an incident management team.

“Women in Rescue is designed to help modify training techniques to suit members with varying strengths and capabilities and empower women to showcase their skills,” VICSES Bellarine unit volunteer Rachel Vella said.

“When we have our orange on, we all take on a wide variety of roles, including flood response, road crash rescue and searches for missing people.

“Women in Rescue has been a great way to consolidate those skills.”

WIR also aims to promote gender inclusion and diversity within VICSES and encourage recruitment and retention of female VICSES volunteers.

At the moment, 1,652 of all 4,869 VICSES volunteers (just over a third) are female, and VICSES says it would love to boost that figure to ensure the organisation reflects the communities it serves.