Community Emergency Response Teams and disaster volunteerism in Latin America
Abstract
While it may be more common to think of a disaster volunteer as someone from outside the community who comes to assist during times of need, it is important not to forget those members of the community who are well poised to build grassroots resilience when provided with the necessary training and tools. This paper examines the state of disaster volunteerism in Latin America and Spanish-speaking communities in the USA who have been exposed to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programme, with an emphasis on the perceptions of and motivations for grassroots volunteerism from the perspective of both local emergency managers and CERT volunteers. The research team developed an online survey and shared it with active Spanish-speaking emergency management groups throughout the USA, Mexico, Central and South America. Conducted over nine days in October 2022, the survey collected 40 responses from the target demographic. The results show that enthusiasm for disaster volunteerism is high throughout the communities surveyed. Established disaster volunteer training programmes like CERT and LISTOS have already been successfully exported from the USA to Chile, Honduras and Mexico. An international community of emergency managers should consider how else to support grassroots preparedness activities in Latin America to ensure that local communities are empowered to direct their own resilience-building initiatives.
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Author's Biography
Matt Lyttle is a Director in the Defense and Security Segment at Guidehouse, where he supports US federal government clients in strategy, transformation and communications projects. Prior to this, he was employed by the US Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee to develop legislation on disaster resilience and emergency management. Matt has held multiple positions within the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Preparedness Directorate, including Acting Deputy Director of Individual and Community Preparedness. In those roles, he managed and designed programmes aimed at building private sector and community preparedness, such as the National Community Emergency Response Team Program. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua, Matt continues to build resilience in Latin America by introducing community preparedness initiatives to Bolivia, Chile, Honduras and Mexico. He is a Security Fellow in the Truman National Security Project, focusing on the intersection of climate change and national security.
Patricio Poblete is a fire-fighter and emergency manager with more than 20 years of experience responding to earthquakes, landslides and other natural hazards. While working for Chile’s National Office of Emergency, Patricio led community preparedness efforts from the earthquake-prone city of Valparaiso, along the border with Argentina, all the way south to Punta Arenas, less than 900 miles from Antarctica. Patricio helped Chile establish its national Community Emergency Response Team programme in 2017. He is now the Executive Director of CERT Latin Global.
Liliana Encinas is the LISTOS National Program Director at the Fire Services Training Institute and Bilingual Public Outreach Coordinator/Public Information Officer at the Santa Barbara, California City Fire Department. She is passionate about taking a cultural and linguistically appropriate approach to providing outreach, education, information, social work, programme development and the promotion of wellness. She has served in various leadership roles for nonprofit, philanthropy and government agencies, and has spent more than 15 years working at local, state and national level to implement better outreach and engagement practices in emergency public education and information for the most vulnerable populations. Liliana is a certified Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Master Trainer for the State of California and FEMA certified Public Information Officer.
Citation
Lyttle, Matt, Poblete, Patricio and Encinas, Liliana (2023, June 1). Community Emergency Response Teams and disaster volunteerism in Latin America. In the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, Volume 16, Issue 4. https://doi.org/10.69554/YYYL6286.
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